


For the Sake of a World

by ashenpages



Category: Shadow the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic Boom (Cartoon), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Enjoy the nonsense, He's mean in the first chapter but soft by the end, I didn't intend this to be novel length when I got started but here we are, I made the chaos emeralds a thing in the Boom universe just for this fic, It's a ride, M/M, Omg they were quarantined, Quarantine fic with a happy ending, Rivals to Lovers, That's what happens when you work through trauma without a therapist, ace Shadow, and they were quarantined, and to give Shadow character development, pansexual Sonic, sex first with caught feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28417419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashenpages/pseuds/ashenpages
Summary: Shadow ends up quarantined with Sonic after a brush with a Shadow from an alternate reality.With old wounds reopened, will he and Sonic be able to survive two weeks quarantined in each other's company?
Relationships: Shadow the Hedgehog & Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog
Comments: 84
Kudos: 134





	1. Day 1: The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I was always sad about how little content Sonic Boom had for Shadow. I put a lot of my feelings about him, trauma, and quarantine in this fic. Started April of 2020, and finished in October of 2020. I edited it in December, and will be releasing chapters on the 1st and 15th of every month.
> 
> Follow the fic here or on tumblr in the Sonadow tag to make sure you don't miss updates!

Quarantined.

This was what helping Sonic and his rag-tag band of heroes save the world from an inter-dimensional invasion got Shadow.

Fucking quarantined.

“Come on, Shadow, stop trying to break the barrier,” the Fox’s voice whined from the new communicator they’d given him for the mission. “Between the energy field I use for Dome-pocalypse and Eggman’s Teleportation Guard technology, you’re never going to get through anyway.”

Shadow took a moment to take the communicator from his wrist and fling it away from him before returning to wailing on the barrier that stood between him and his freedom.

A sigh, a zooming sound, and then a pair of sports-tape-wrapped hands in white gloves affixed the communicator back to Shadow’s wrist.

Shadow turned his face to growl at the blue hedgehog next to him.

Sonic shrugged at him. “Tails is right, you know.” He crossed his arms, leaned against the bubble keeping them confined at Sonic’s beach shack and tapped on the barrier with his knuckles. “We’re not getting through this thing any time soon.” He gave Shadow a cool look. “And neither are the germs we’re infected with. You know, the ones that might hurt everyone we just saved?”

Shadow turned away from the barrier with a noise of disgust and sped away from Sonic. He’d try the other side for a while.

Another sigh, another zooming sound, and Sonic was next to him again. “Come on, Shadow. Give it a rest.” He gestured to the set of weights the stupid muscle-headed Echidna had left them. “If you need to blow off some steam, take a turn on the weights Knuckles left us. Or, better yet, the punching bag. ‘S probably less likely to break your hands than Tails and Egghead’s barrier.”

“Well… It’s made of energy, so it’ll keep you in, but it shouldn’t hurt you.”

Shadow ripped the communicator from his wrist again and threw it straight at Sonic. He raised his finger and pointed it accusingly at Sonic. “Keep yourself and your pitiful friends away from me,” he growled. He turned back to the barrier and went back to hitting it. “I’ll do what I like.”

Another of Sonic’s wretched sighs wormed its way into Shadow’s ears.

He’d strangle the hedgehog if he had to hear another one of those.

Instead, he heard Sonic take a step away from him. “Tails, there’s really no way he can get through?”

“Nope. That thing’s completely Sonic and Shadow proof. Maybe with the power of those strange stones that came through from that other universe, but they’re locked up tight right now in their own quarantine bubble. And don’t worry Sonic. The team’s got things handled out here. Eggman’s been surprisingly helpful, but I think that has more to do with Amy threatening not to be Fuzzy Puppy Buddies with him anymore than anything else. Knuckles is actually encouraging the townspeople, and you know how good Sticks is in an emergency.”

Shadow seethed as Sonic laughed. “Well, glad to hear you’ve got the clean up handled, buddy. We’ll do our part and keep these germs away from you.”

“It should be harmless once two weeks have passed… And we’re not even sure you’ll feel sick, but…”

“Yeah, I know, better safe than sorry. Thanks, buddy.”

“We’re lucky it was just the two of you that went through the portal. With how contagious this virus is, it would have been a lot harder to contain if it had been all of us.” Tails laughed, but it sounded sad. “I guess it was a good call making the rest of us stay on the other side of the portal after all, but I keep thinking that if we’d been with you maybe this wouldn’t have happened at all.”

Shadow fumed. The Fox’s words felt like an accusation.

“Don’t say that, buddy. We all helped. And if you and the rest of the team had all been exposed, who would be taking care of the fallout right now, huh? Can’t think of anyone better to deal with it than you guys.”

There was a pause. “You can use the communicators if you need anything or if you need some company. I, um…” The Fox’s voice got softer—as if Shadow couldn’t hear him with his superior hearing. “I’m not sure how nice being cooped up with Mr. Gloomy Pants will be for you.”

Sonic laughed, and Shadow punched the barrier even harder.

“Jeez, Tails, tell me how you really feel. But don’t worry, we’ll find some way to deal with being locked up in here for two weeks.”

Shadow yelled as he punched the barrier and then whirled on Sonic. “Stop speaking for me like I’m going go along with this stupid charade!”

Sonic gave Shadow another frigid look, then tipped his head towards his communicator and said, “One way or another.”

Shadow narrowed his eyes. “Is that a threat?”

Sonic rolled his eyes and blew air between his lips. Static came from the communicator, drawing his eyes away from Shadow and back down the device on his wrist. Tails voice came through again.

“Ah… Sorry, Sonic, I gotta go. Those weird rocks are acting up again.”

Shadow almost wanted to smirk over the way Sonic’s face fell, but he was still too angry about being locked up. He lived _alone_. Wasn’t that just as good as this stupid quarantine?

“Yeah… Yeah, okay. Call again soon with any updates, okay?”

Only silence met the blue hedgehog’s questions.

This time, Sonic’s sigh was much more forlorn.

Shadow couldn’t help the smirk this time. “Already feeling lonely away from your pitiful friends, Sonic? It’s about time. You can’t do anything without them—not even contain me.”

Sonic raised his eyes, his look even cooler now than it had been before. He weighed Shadow’s communicator in his hand, and then turned back towards the shack. “I’m gonna go look at the pile of ‘survival equipment’ Sticks left us.” He raised Shadow’s communicator and waved it as he walked away. “I’ll leave this on the counter for you once you’re done punching the wall.”

Shadow scoffed and turned back to the barrier. “I won’t be done until I break it,” he muttered, resuming his onslaught.

But, eventually, the sun moved from high in the sky towards the line of the sea against the horizon. Shadow finally gave up once he started to lose daylight, and fell panting onto the sand. He looked at the barrier, rage still burning hot in his stomach.

You try and help someone, and they lock you up again anyway.

This was why he never worked with others.

You never knew what they were going to take from you.

His stomach grumbled at him, and he let out a sigh of defeat. Even ultimate life forms needed to eat when they weren’t in stasis. He turned an ear towards the shack. Nothing. He listened harder. The steady sound of Sonic’s sleeping breath came to him.

Fool. Who would sleep at a time like this?

Still. It meant Shadow could enter the shack without having to prepare some sort of edged remark. He raised himself off the ground and trudged back to the shack. He let his body be heavy. It was how he felt right now. Heavy and useless. He couldn’t even break a simple barrier. His mind wandered back to those seven stones that he and Sonic had encountered in that dying dimension.

That dimension…

Shadow shuddered.

It had been so desolate there. Ravaged. And the one who had possessed the stones…

Shadow closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the image—a too-familiar sillohette, a laugh too much like his own, and those twisted things that the false-him had said about Maria…

Shadow leaned against the door frame of Sonic’s shack and allowed himself one private moment of pain.

Maria had asked him to protect the world.

On his best days, he wanted to…

On his worst, well… They had seen what he wanted on his worst days in that other dimension.

He and Sonic may have saved what was left of that dimension, but there hadn’t been much to save. They’d only been able to take down the other Shadow thanks to the power of those stones. Without it, the existence of two Shadows would have collapsed all of their dimensions before they’d had a chance.

Maybe it would have been better if the dimensions had collapsed. Then maybe he would finally be able to rest. Give up the endless struggle of trying to see just what Maria had deemed worth protecting.

He couldn’t see it with her gone.

A hitch in Sonic’s breathing made Shadow jump, and the black hedgehog hurried into the shack, his stoic frown back in place.

The shack screamed of Sonic’s friends, their different tastes clashing into a semi-functional disaster of a home. Sonic hung sleeping in his hammock—the only thing that Shadow felt truly spoke of Sonic in the house. A small kitchenette with a breakfast bar screamed of the pink hammer-toting hedgehog that Sonic was always making eyes at. The refrigerator inside of it was clearly one of the Doctor’s contributions, even without the note telling Sonic he was expected to be eternally grateful since the Doctor had invented a way to assemble chilidogs on demand just for him. The punching bag from the meat-headed echidna swung gently from one of Sonic’s rafters. The wild badger had left them a pile of what Shadow could only determine to be junk, but that had Sonic kept making noises of understanding about as she’d continued to add to the pile. And the Fox inventor was easy to see in the hygienic set-up out back and the overly complicated dual-purpose couch/bed he’d created for them. He’d seemed pleased when he’d told Shadow that it could serve as his bed during this time. Shadow’s lip curled just thinking about it.

He turned away and stalked over to the refrigerator. He opened it and took the chilidog the machine assembled for him with a feeling of disdain.

Did Sonic have no taste? What was this supposed to give him nutritionally? He’d be better off with some fresh fruit, vegetables, and freshly prepared meat.

Still, fuel was fuel. And he would be damned if he was going to ask any of the people who had locked him up to change the diet he had available while he was here. He ate the chilidog in as few bites as possible, only chewing enough to make sure he wouldn’t choke before swallowing, trying hard not to taste the food as he ate it. He sighed and leaned against the breakfast bar. When he looked up, a flowery teapot with two delicate teacups caught his eye. The white porcelain, and the pattern of violets…

He reached out and traced the delicate handle of one of the cups, a small nostalgic smile rising to his lips. It reminded him of the set Maria used to have.

A yawn jolted Shadow out of his reverie as Sonic sat up in his hammock stretching. Shadow flinched away from the cup—but too hard. The cup went spinning off the saucer and out into the open air off the other side of the breakfast bar.

Shadow lunged after it, but he was too far. With the bar between him and the cup, he wouldn’t catch it in time without crushing the rest of the set!

In a moment, Sonic went from his hammock to the floor, catching the cup with a slide. He looked up at Shadow from the floor. “Jeez, Shadz. Never figured you for a tea party kinda guy.”

Shadow tsked. “What would you even know about tea parties, fool?”

Sonic blinked exaggeratedly and then shook his head like he was trying to make sense of what Shadow had just said as he stood up and replaced the teacup on its saucer. “I’m sorry… Was your comeback to my insinuating that you like tea parties to tell me I know nothing about tea parties?”

Shadow growled and moved to the punching bag. He was tired from wailing on the barrier all day, but punching the bag would be better than punching Sonic’s face in right now. Especially with that delicate tea set right there.

To his credit, Sonic let Shadow leave the argument unmolested. Shadow listened as Sonic made his way around the shack; taking his own chilidog from the fridge, washing the few dishes they’d already accumulated, then popping outside to run the circumference of the barrier a few hundred times before making use of the shower Tails had installed on the back porch. He assembled some sort of self-powering lamp out of the pile of things the badger had left him, and then started sorting through the rest. He even started one of the puzzles that had been left on their coffee table alongside some video and board games. Shadow kept punching through it all. It only took the speedy hedgehog about twenty minutes to do all that anyway.

But he seemed agitated. He’d lulled on the puzzle, his patience apparently spent on getting the border of the picture put together. He sat on the couch, his leg jiggling incessantly.

Finally, Shadow couldn’t take it anymore.

He landed his last blow on the punching bag, walked over to the table, and set up the puzzle box so that the picture was facing Sonic. “You have to use the box.” He started sorting the pieces into different piles based on their coloration. “Then it’s just a matter of finding the right colors and putting them together.” He took the piece Sonic had in his hand and placed it in the upper left corner of the puzzle where a purple iris was supposed to spring from the vase of flowers the puzzle depicted.

Sonic raised his eyebrows. “Tea parties _and_ puzzles?” He leaned forward with a warm look. “You’re full of surprises.”

Shadow looked away and glared. “Whatever. Your incompetence is annoying. Now get off the couch. I want to sleep.”

“Ah, right, my bad.” Sonic got up and hit the button that turned the whole thing into a bed. “Will the light bother you?”

Shadow lay down and turned away from Sonic. “Yes.”

“Oh.” Sonic sounded surprised. “You’d think the Ultimate Life Form could sleep with a night light.”

Shadow let out a long, world-weary sigh. He didn’t want to be reminded of being the ultimate immortal all-powerful life form right now. “I don’t keep artificial lights. I can see well enough in the dark if I need to, and so I wake and sleep with the sun. The light will keep me awake.”

“Same probably goes for the noise of the punching bag or another run, huh?”

Shadow opened an eye and glared at Sonic over his shoulder. “Are you always so talkative when someone is trying to sleep?”

Sonic spread his hands apologetically. “Sorry. I’ll get the light.”

Blissful silence fell as the light went out and Sonic settled back into his hammock.

And then the restless blue hedgehog turned on his blasted communicator. Shadow didn’t know what he was looking at, but it had Sonic muttering to himself and laughing in his hammock.

Shadow let it go on for thirty minutes hoping it was perhaps some sort of pre-sleep ritual the other hedgehog had. Finally, he sat up, the springs of the bed protesting under him. “Are you going to be on that thing all night?”

Sonic gasped and turned the communicator off. “Sorry, just checking up on the team. They, uh… They sent us a few status updates. And Knuckles sent me some funny pictures too. He’s not great with words, but he leaves good voice messages and takes great pictures, so he—”

“What makes you think I care about any of this?”

Sonic snapped his mouth shut. He swiveled sideways on his hammock so his feet hung over the edge and looked at the floor. Maybe he’d forgotten what Shadow had just said about being able to see well in the dark, but Sonic actually looked hurt. “Look, Shadow. I’m really trying to make this as painless for the two of us as possible. But I’m not tired. With nothing to do, my mind runs in circles. And not all of us rise and set with the sun.”

Shadow considered. Even he couldn’t keep up fighting Sonic for two weeks straight without rest. And he was already tired from attacking the barrier all day. Not tired enough that his instincts would let him sleep when unfamiliar sounds were about, though. Especially after what they’d seen in that alternate dimension. He was on edge enough that Sonic _would_ keep him up if he stayed up. But, that still left the problem of Sonic’s spiraling mind.

He knew that made him sleep when his mind wouldn’t rest.

“Give yourself an orgasm then. That should put your mind and your body to rest.”

Sonic jolted back in his hammock so hard he almost fell out of it. “What?!”

Shadow blinked. What was with that reaction? “… I can’t tell if you’re confused by the suggestion or asking me what an orgasm is.”

“W-w-w-whoa, Shadow, slow down.” Sonic raised a hand over his chest and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, it was hushed, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. Which was abusrd, because they were trapped in this maniacal bubble with only each other for company. “I just… I’m not gonna masturbate in front of you, man. That’s…”

Shadow gave Sonic a bored look—wasted on the other hedgehog due to the lack of light. He slid over his bed and settled on the floor in front of Sonic as the blue hedgehog rambled about how he’d be too self-conscious and he wasn’t sure it would tire him out anyway. He stopped when Shadow grabbed his knees. His eyes flicked down nervously as Shadow pushed Sonic knees apart, then yelped and pushed against the floor with his feet as Shadow licked at the slit between his legs that sheathed his penis.

“Shadow, wha—?”

Shadow cut him off with a more insistent lick.

Sonic moaned and his hand came down to rest in the quills on Shadow’s head.

“Just pretend it’s the muscle-headed echidna if that’s what does it for you.” Shadow smirked between licks as he saw Sonic blush in the darkness. He could feel Sonic starting to get hard beneath the protective folds of skin and fur. “Or the powerful Amy Rose.” Sonic’s blush intensified and his erection finally poked its head through his sheath. Shadow’s smirk grew, a white fang glimmering with the faint light of the night. “Or both.” Sonic’s breath stuttered and his hips bucked under Shadow’s hands.

Shadow fitted his lips around the head of Sonic’s erection and sucked it into his mouth as it grew. He knew this part of the dance well. It was easy enough for him to do this for himself on the nights that he needed it. Sonic was so willing to curl up on himself to fight Doctor Eggman or to save the world, but not to suck at the most pleasurable set of nerves on his body for the sake of a good night’s sleep?

Preposterous.

Sonic made a strained sound and tried to push away from Shadow. Shadow tightened his grip on Sonic’s legs as the other hedgehog’s arms flailed in his hammock.

“Stop squirming or you’re going to fall off,” Shadow commanded.

Sonic’s breath was ragged. “Shadow, you don’t have to do this.”

Confusion and annoyance coalesced into frustration and anger. “Of course I don’t have to.” He pulled Sonic back towards him by the hips. “But I’m going to, so stop getting in my way.”

Sonic gulped down some air. “Listen. Stuff like this _means_ stuff to people—”

Shadow scoffed. “Don’t go assigning some strange significance to this. You said you would be too self-conscious to do this properly. You said we’d have to work together if we were going to live in any sort of relative comfort for the next two weeks. I’m simply doing my part in this truce so I can get some fucking sleep.” He shook the hammock to make sure he had Sonic’s attention. “Understood?”

Sonic was quiet for a moment. “Y-yeah.” He put his hand back between Shadow’s quills. “Okay.”

“Good. Now lie back and think about your knuckle-headed friend.” Shadow dipped his head and went back to work.

Sonic’s hand tightened in Shadow’s quills, and the other hedgehog let out a breathy sigh as he leaned back in his hammock, his back arching and his head falling over the edge. One of Sonic’s legs curled up off the ground. Shadow kept him steady with one hand on Sonic’s hip and the other forcefully wrapped around the ankle of Sonic’s standing leg. He bobbed his head, working the full length of Sonic’s erection now that the other hedgehog seemed fully on board. It wasn’t long before Sonic’s bitten back moans and stuttering breaths rose in volume and intensity. Shadow fell forward over Sonic’s cock, knowing what would come next. The hedgehog twitched and orgasmed with a shout. Shadow swallowed around him, holding Sonic suspended in place until the other hedgehog sagged under him with a satisfied sleepy sigh.

Shadow removed his mouth as Sonic’s penis softened and retracted into the sheath from whence it had come. He stood, keeping his hold on Sonic’s ankle, and spun Sonic back into the full length of his hammock.

Sonic grunted a little with sleepy surprise at the motion, but smiled when Shadow tucked the hammock back around his body. “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice heavy with post-coital bliss.

Shadow paused, the gratitude taking him off guard. Still, Maria had taught him manners if nothing else. “You’re welcome,” he said gruffly. He stepped away to return to his bed, but was caught up short by a surprisingly quick hand for such a sleepy hedgehog.

“Wait,” Sonic murmured. “What about you?”

Shadow blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… Aren’t you… You know.”

Shadow blinked again then sighed. “Sonic, I’m too tired for games.”

Sonic bit his lip. “Aren’t you hard? Both your hands were on me, and your mouth was too, so… I mean, you haven’t orgasmed.”

Shadow raised his eyebrows. “You think I have an erection.”

Sonic’s features shifted into a quizzical look. “I mean… Don’t you?”

Shadow laughed wearily. “No.” He jerked his hand away. “And if I did, I’m more than capable of taking care of it myself.” He lay back down on his bed. “Now go to sleep. If you have more to say, you can say it in the morning.”

A yawn came from the hammock, and small mumbled affirmation, and then Sonic’s breathing slowly slipped into the long slow breaths of sleep. Shadow let himself drift towards slumber then too. One day down. Thirteen more to go.

He’d deal with that in the morning.


	2. Day 2: An Agreement

For once, Shadow slept in.

He blamed not wanting to acknowledge his current reality. He’d rather dream.

He kept his eyes shut even as the muffled sounds of Sonic moving around the shack brought him back to tortuous consciousness. What was Sonic even doing? All that banging around in the kitchen and—wait. Shadow inhaled, the scent of butter, eggs, and sausage reaching his nose. Was Sonic… cooking?

Shadow sat up and opened his eyes.

Sonic was in the kitchen, two plates in hand. He turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Jeez, Shadz, don’t you ever make any noise?” He rolled his eyes and set the plates on the breakfast bar between them. “Good timing, though. Food’s up.”

Shadow blinked slowly, still trying to acclimate to a reality in which Sonic cooked.

Sonic cocked his head and then smirked. “Guess even if you rise with the sun, you don’t actually wake up for a while, do you?”

Shadow glared. “I’ve been awake for far longer than I’ve had my eyes open. Anyone would be, with the ruckus you make.”

Sonic rolled his eyes, still looking smug, and lifted the teapot Shadow had been admiring the night before. To Shadow’s surprise, the spout was steaming, as if there were actually hot liquid inside. Sonic took one of the cups and dumped what looked to be more hot water out before refilling it with a dark stream of tea.

Shadow inhaled again.

The sharp lingering scent of black tea reached his nostrils.

It was enough to coax Shadow from his bed in surprise as Sonic put the cup back down in its saucer and then repeated the gesture with the other cup. Shadow took a seat on one of the stools in front of the breakfast bar and lifted the cup to his nose. There was no mistaking this scent. Darjeeling. One of Maria’s favorites.

“Where did you get this?” Shadow asked.

Sonic’s eyes flicked up to Shadow’s and then back down. If Shadow didn’t know the egotistical fop better, he’d say Sonic looked almost bashful. “Um, Amy left it. Along with all the other tea stuff.”

Shadow raised an eyebrow. “And you suddenly know how to brew tea?”

Shadow hadn’t been seeing things after all, Sonic flushed straight up to his ears. “Listen… She left it all here, it would be stupid for it to go to waste, and—“

Amy Rose’s voice cut Sonic off, speaking tinnily from his communicator. “Sonic, you’ve remembered to remove the tea leaves, right? If this really is supposed to be some kind of thank you for Shadow, you won’t want to over steep—“

Sonic flailed and then covered his commutator with his hand.

Shadow watched Sonic with little amusement. “What was that?”

The other hedgehog stood as if frozen. He gave Shadow a sheepish grin. “Nothing?”

Shadow blinked slowly and sipped his tea to show what he thought of that answer.

Sonic sighed and pushed his hand back over his spikes. “I thought maybe you’d like it, and it was here, so I sent Amy a message this morning. Didn’t think she’d _call_ to check in on it.”

Shadow placed his cup back in the saucer, then gestured to the food on the table. “And this?”

Sonic swung his thumb up over his shoulder and pointed at the Doctor’s food assembling fridge. “Got Eggman to give us an update by telling him he could try out some of his recipes on us if he’d also give us some more variety.”

“So you didn’t cook this.”

Sonic shook his head. “No… That would have gone about as well as one of Egghead’s half-baked schemes. And if I wanted you to _enjoy_ breakfast, Amy convinced me that trying to learn to cook on the fly wasn’t a good move.” Sonic leaned on the bar and pulled his plate towards him, cutting into the sausage and egg omelet that sat in the middle of it with a fork. He aimed a cocky look at Shadow as he stuck the bite in his mouth and chewed. “Knuckles thought it was sweet, though.”

Shadow gave Sonic another cool look over the rim of his cup. It was over steeped, but not bad for a first attempt. His eyes flicked to the fridge, which he noticed was now covered in digitally projected buttons with different food options on them. The Doctor’s recipes had his sigil stamped into the corner of them. Well, at least Shadow wouldn’t have to subsist completely on one kind of food now. There was some comfort in that. And the omelet seemed passible, given that Sonic wasn’t choking to get it down.

Shadow removed the tea leaves from the pot and set them on the edge of his plate. Then he lifted the fork Sonic had provided and cut into it. “Well, I’m glad you know how to go about wooing your two different crushes now.”

Sonic choked on the bite he’d been swallowing.

Shadow hid his smile behind his last sip of tea and poured himself another cup as Sonic pounded on his chest and coughed. Shadow sipped his tea as Sonic threw his back and swallowed. The blue hedgehog sighed with relief as the food and tea finally went down his throat. Then he stuck out his tongue and made a face. He gestured to his cup and set it back in the saucer. “How can you drink this stuff? It’s so bitter.”

“Maybe to an unrefined palette like yours.” Shadow set his tea down and leaned back on the stool, crossing his arms now that he’d finished his breakfast. “Now it’s time to tell me what you’re playing at.”

“Uh… Playing at?”

Shadow gestured to the teapot and the plates between them. “Rose said this was supposed to be a ‘thank you’ before you cut her off.”

Sonic scratched at his neck. “You’re really gonna make me say it?”

Shadow raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

Sonic gave him a disbelieving look. “Never mind.” He took Shadow’s plate and his own and stuck them in the sink.

Shadow felt his temper flare. “You’re the one who said we would have to work together if we wanted to be remotely comfortable during this time,” he accused. “And now you aren’t even willing to even explain yourself?”

Sonic froze up at the sink. Then he sighed and turned off the water he was rinsing their plates with. He turned around, his eyes focused on the teapot instead of Shadow. “Alright, fine. Cards on the table.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like saying this, but you’ve got me at a disadvantage, Shadz. Last night was weird and confusing and really great…”

Shadow nodded and took another sip of his tea. He knew he was good at oral stimulation given how it helped him get to sleep when his mind and body wouldn’t quiet.

“But I have no idea how you knew about my crush on Amy, or the one I have on Knuckles.”

Shadow shrugged. “You’re rather more transparent than I think you realize.”

Sonic’s eyes had a strange look to them. Tight. Worried.

Shadow looked away, not liking the look.

“Please… Don’t tell them.”

Shadow scoffed. “Like I have anything to say to you or your pitiful friends under normal circumstances anyway.” He pushed away from the breakfast bar. “You should listen to Rose, though. The tea was over steeped.” He made for the door. “I’m going to see if I can find any fruit off the trees inside this damn barrier, since even a simple thing like that can’t be gained from our expanded menu.” He saw Sonic sag out of the corner of his eyes, but couldn’t be bothered to question it. The hedgehog’s erratic behavior was annoying enough. He wasn’t going to stick around and ponder it further.

He walked out into the sun and scanned the perimeter of the bubble around them.

Where to find actual food in this damn prison?

He eyed the sea water he’d tried to escape through yesterday. Maybe the Fox and the Doctor were smart enough to program their bubble so that normal ocean flora and fauna could still go between the shore and the ocean. The waves still rolled in the same as they ever did, so there was a high chance that it was something the two scientists had taken on—even if only as a challenge. The Fox might have done it out of consideration for the eco-systems his force field could disrupt, but Shadow was sure the Doctor would only have engaged to show off his ability. Shadow eyed the damp sand the waves rolled over. A few holes in the sand showed where clams might lay, buried and ripe for the picking. A gentle breeze blew through the trees—further supporting the hypothesis that the Fox and the Doctor had found some way to allow natural elements to pass through the bubble normally. Shadow looked up into the gently waving fronds of the palms that lined the beach. There were definitely a few within the perimeter that looked promising.

Shadow teleported up into one of the trees. He could have climbed it, but he wanted to feel powerful right now. Sonic had… upset him. He picked up a coconut and cracked it in half over his knee. He took a savage bite from the flesh within and then washed it down with a sip of the sweet water within. He sat down on top of the tree, taking solace in the privacy of the fronds, and chewed. He wasn’t even really all that hungry. The omelet had been sufficient. The tea had been decent, for a first attempt. Was he eating for comfort? The idea that the other hedgehog could upset him to the point of needing to take comfort made Shadow take another angry bite of the coconut, prying the white flesh away from the shell with his teeth. He swallowed the rest of the water to cool his temper and so that he could lay back in the fronds and look at the sky without worrying about spilling any of it.

It didn’t look quite the same through the dome.

Shadow sighed and rolled to the side. His eyes landed on the front door of the shack, visible through the fronds of the tree.

Stupid Sonic. Always talking about his friends. Asking Shadow not to mess up his relationships with them, like Shadow cared who Sonic was interested in fucking or not. What it must be like, to be controlled by those desires. He was grateful not to be at the whims of such attractions himself.

Still.

He rolled onto his other side and ran a lazy hand over his groin. His cock twitched a little and he smirked. It would be fun to bend Sonic over his hammock and show him the uses of other nerve clusters on his body. Sucking him off had seemed to really take Sonic out of his element, and it had been… pleasing to have Sonic at his mercy.

He palmed himself and groaned, letting his eyes slide shut.

He usually only masturbated to get to sleep. But the day had already been so aggravating. He could do with a burst of endorphins…

Shadow slid his hand more insistently over his groin, and then spread the slit of his sheath before curling around himself to lick at it and excite the organ within. He pulled his cock into his mouth as it unfurled and sucked at it, thinking all the while of how he could make Sonic want and beg and plead.

He washed the taste of his orgasm away with another coconut, and then felt the lethargy of sleep seep into his limbs. He had never been one to nap during the day… but what else was there to do in this forsaken prison anyway, he thought. He wrapped a frond around himself so he wouldn’t fall in his sleep, and then let the warm feeling of the sun on his fur lull him into warm dark oblivion.

When he woke, the afternoon sun hung low in the sky. Shadow squinted at it, the feeling of a headache coming on. Ugh. This was why he didn’t like napping. He sat up and stretched, taking a brief glance at his surroundings.

Still no sign of Sonic.

Shadow frowned.

He would have expected the good-for-nothing self-proclaimed hero to come looking for him by now. Maybe even begin to panic when he couldn’t find him.

So much for making himself feel better by masturbating, Shadow thought as he unwrapped himself from the tree and dropped to the ground. He landed in the sand with a dull thump and then stood, glancing from side to side with annoyance. There was hardly any evidence that Sonic had been outside at all.

Shadow rolled his eyes and went to investigate the part of their bubble that housed the ocean. He doubted he would find many fish there in the shallows, but the Fox’s perimeter did extend to some of the fuller depths, and he could always dig in the sand for shellfish as well.

He came away with a fish, five clams, and a few mussels he’d found growing on a rock that seemed to be submerged and exposed with the tide. He bit into the fish’s brain with a fang to keep it from feeling any pain and gathered the shellfish into the curves of his leftover coconut meat. So long as he was considerate about his harvesting, he could probably provide steady ingredients for real cooking over the next two weeks.

It was something to do that felt like his normal routine, even if he’d skipped training for the day. At least swimming and digging had let him stretch his limbs.

And it would serve Sonic right to be crushed by having real food shoved in his face when all he was used to eating was trash.

Shadow stopped on his way back to the shack and grimaced. Why did he care? Whatever. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the intrusive thought. It was only temporary. Having to live with the annoying hedgehog brought out his tempter. That was all.

He stalked into the shack, pointedly ignored Sonic, and made directly for the kitchen, where he stored the shellfish and the gutted fish in the fridge. He was surprised there was any space, but perhaps the Doctor had accounted for leftovers.

His task complete, he finally looked up to take stock of what the other hedgehog was doing. What could have kept him in the house all day long anyway? Sonic sat on Shadow’s bed, currently restored to its couch form. He leaned over the coffee table, his knee jiggling as he considered the puzzle he’d been working on the night before. Shadow felt his lip curl with disgust as he realized Sonic hadn’t gotten any further with the puzzle, had completely destroyed the organized piles of color-coded pieces Shadow had made, and was actually gnawing on the piece he held between his two fingers.

Shadow went over, stood on the other side of the table, and crossed his arms. “You’ve been working on this all day, and all you’ve managed to do is turn cardboard into a snack and destroy any hope of progress you had?”

Sonic released the puzzle piece between his teeth to sigh. “Yeah, well, can’t get anything else right either, so may as well continue the trend.” He put the piece down in the middle of the puzzle where it absolutely didn’t belong and picked up another, which quickly ended up back between his teeth.

Shadow’s temper flared. Sonic hadn’t even looked at him. And what was with that defeatist, self-pitying excuse? Shadow reached out and slapped the piece out of Sonic’s hand and back onto the table.

That got Sonic to look at him.

“Oh, pardon me,” Sonic droned sarcastically. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head, giving Shadow a cool look as he reclined against the couch. “Was my incompetence too annoying again?”

Shadow growled. “You’ll damage the pieces. They won’t fit together right if you chew on them.”

Sonic rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, last I checked, you weren’t actually interested in helping—just criticizing.”

Shadow scoffed. “Like you want my help with this puzzle.”

Sonic scoffed back. “Like I _need_ your help with this puzzle.”

Shadow scoffed again, more aggressively. “ _You_ need all the help you can _get_.”

Sonic sucked in a breath, his eyes looking hurt. There was a beat—just long enough for Shadow to wonder why he was provoking the other hedgehog—and then Sonic’s cool look returned. “At least I have friends to give me help when I need it.”

Shadow teleported to the other side of table, right in front of Sonic, reminding the other hedgehog just how slow and imprecise he was. He leaned in menacingly. He shouldn’t be taking this personally. Sonic didn’t know anything about Maria. He couldn’t rub her death in Shadow’s face, because he didn’t know about it. But that didn’t change the way it made him feel. “A lot of good they’re doing you now, speedy-boy, trapped all the way on the other side of that barrier. Why…” He placed an arm against the back of the couch, trapping Sonic against it, and leaned in further, so that their noses almost brushed. “Anything could happen to you in here, and they wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it.”

A warm puff of air brushed against Shadow’s lips as the air went out of Sonic. But instead of the look of angry determination or fear that Shadow expected, Sonic looked… flustered.

Shadow blinked. The gust of Sonic’s breath against Shadow’s lips came again. Shadow frowned, turning this over in his head. “Is the reason you’ve been so difficult today…” He murmured the words, letting his other hand rise up and wander over the bandana around the other hedgehog’s neck. Sonic made a muffled sound and seemed torn between leaning away and leaning into the touch. “Because you want me to touch you again, and don’t want to ask?”

Sonic let out a frustrated sigh and looked to the side, the last remaining fragments of his disaffected façade in place even as Shadow felt the hedgehog’s temperature rise under his fingers. “What would make you think that?”

Shadow raised an eyebrow. He took Sonic by the chin and made the other hedgehog look at him. “Breakfast. Learning to steep tea you won’t drink. Your foul mood at my criticism.” He traced the blush forming on Sonic’s cheek. “The fact that you look more aroused than afraid right now.”

Sonic huffed again, this time with no restraint.

Shadow smirked. “Ah, so I’m right.”

Sonic gulped, fear starting to creep into his expression. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Last night was… good. I’d be down to have something like that again. But… not if you’re gonna lord it over me.”

Shadow laughed.

Sonic threw up his hands. “See, like that. If you’re gonna laugh at me, I don’t want any—”

Shadow pinned Sonic to the couch. “I’m laughing because it was stupid of you not to ask this morning instead of putting on this entire charade.”

Sonic scoffed. “There’s nothing charade-y about breakfast. Everyone needs to eat. And even I get tired of chilidogs sometimes. Not exactly a breakfast food, ya know. Wait.” Sonic paused in his defense of breakfast, seeming to realize what Shadow had just said to him. “Are you… agreeing to touch me again?”

Shadow shrugged. “If it makes my time here easier, I see no reason not to. But what will I receive in return?”

Sonic blinked. “Uh… I mean, usually, these things go both ways, Shadz.” He reached out and ran his hand delicately over Shadow’s groin. Shadow hadn’t been expecting it. He shivered. Sonic smiled, looking pleased with himself. “So you can get excited,” he said gently.

Shadow pushed him into the couch harder, and Sonic caught his breath with a small hitch. “I’m not ruled by sexual attraction the way you are. You’ll be getting far more out of this arrangement than I will, even if I do orgasm with you. So I say again; what will you give me in return?”

Sonic blinked slowly. “Well… What do you want?”

Shadow answered immediately. “Food that isn’t from your stupid restaurant chain or an experiment of the Doctor’s. Ingredients would do, especially those we can’t get here.”

“We can get ingredients here?”

Shadow rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me think any less of you. I’m used to preparing food over a fire, but since Rose has seen fit to make a stove and cooking implements available, I can make do with those.”

“Okay.” Sonic stroked his hand over Shadow’s side. “Anything else?”

Shadow thought for a moment. “More tea in the mornings. Though you’ll need to get better at preparing it.”

Sonic rolled his eyes. “Amy sent me a timer when I told her what happened.”

“Good. Use it.”

Sonic sighed. “Fine. And that’s all you want?”

“A structured sleep schedule.”

Sonic smirked suggestively. “Don’t think that’ll be any trouble if you’re helping me get to sleep.”

Shadow thought quickly, trying to find something else to demand that didn’t leave Sonic looking at him like that. “And I suppose you would be useful as a sparring partner. More tolerable than watching you continue to ruin puzzles.”

Sonic chuckled. “Yeah, I wasn’t making much headway anyway after I messed up the piles you made.”

“You should have kept them. They would have helped you.”

Sonic smirked and put his hands on Shadow’s waist. “I’d rather you helped me.”

Shadow raised an eyebrow, knowing Sonic didn’t mean with the puzzles. “I stopped you chewing on the pieces, didn’t I?” He looked away from Sonic’s goofy half-lidded look of interest. It made him feel… warm. “Now was that a yes, or should I go back to trying to break this bubble down until the sun sets?”

Sonic took one of Shadow’s hands and placed the knuckles of it against his lips. He kissed them gently and the warm feeling that had been working its way up Shadow’s throat shot up into his cheeks and down into his heart at the same time.

“Yeah. I think I can do all that.”

“Then it’s a deal.” Shadow pulled Sonic up close to him by the bandana. “Ask next time you want something, or I’ll put you through the wall.”

The same flustered look came over Sonic’s face as when Shadow had first trapped him on the couch. What a tyrant sexual attraction must be.

“Okay,” Sonic breathed.

Shadow dropped the other hedgehog and made to move away, but Sonic caught his hand. Shadow stopped and turned an eye back over his shoulder, regarding the blue hedgehog quietly. “Something you want?”

Sonic nodded, still looking flushed. He cleared his throat, like it was taking him a minute to find the words he wanted. “Would you… Can I have a kiss before you stalk off to punch things?”

Shadow tsked, but turned around and leaned back over Sonic, an arm on either side of the blue hedgehog, locking him in place. “I’m going to start preparing dinner, not punch things. But since you asked…” He laid his lips against Sonic’s forehead and kissed him. “…There.”

Sonic watched Shadow with big, surprised eyes.

Shadow held his position. “What?”

“Um…” Sonic looked bashful, then rubbed his neck and lifted his chin. “Nothing, but, uh, could I get another? You know, for acclimation purposes, or practicing asking or whatever.”

Shadow narrowed his eyes. It was a strange request, but he supposed there was no harm. “Fine.” He caught Sonic by the chin and turned the hedgehog’s face to lay another kiss gently on Sonic’s cheek. “There you go.” He was about to pull away when Sonic dissolved into laughter against him, hiding his face against Shadow’s chest. Shadow froze with confusion.

“This isn’t how people usually react to kisses,” he told Sonic.

Sonic’s laughter only intensified. Shadow waited. There was no point in aggravating it. Finally, Sonic pulled back and wiped a tear from his eye.

“Shadz, I can’t tell if you’re messing with me, or if you actually don’t know what a kiss is.”

Shadow frowned at Sonic. “I gave you two kisses already. If you want me to perform oral sex again or something, you’re going to have to change the way you’re phrasing your request.”

Sonic snorted, covering his mouth with a hand. “How do you not know this? Have you never kissed anyone before.”

Shadow narrowed his eyes again and glared. “Careful, Sonic,” he growled. “You’re dangerously close to making it feel like you’re laughing at _me_ now.”

“Mm, _please_ keep using that tone of voice,” Sonic purred. Then there was the telltale zooming noise of Sonic using his powers, and Shadow was pulled down onto the couch. Sonic sat straddling his lap. “But here, let me show you what I mean.”

“Wha—” But Shadow didn’t have time to finish his question as Sonic turned his head and slotted his mouth against Shadow’s.

Shadow froze, his eyes open, his heart pounding.

This… was _nothing_ like how Maria used to kiss him.

Suddenly all of the description of kisses he’d read in the books he’d used his teleportation powers to borrow from the library made a lot more sense.

Sonic hummed and pulled back. “This goes better if you kiss me back.”

“How?” Shadow asked.

“Just copy what I’m doing. And, um, do what feels good.”

Shadow nodded, and pulled Sonic back down, pressing his lips against Sonic’s the way Sonic had done to him. Sonic hummed into the kiss and his hands traced between Shadow’s quills. “Yeah,” he said between kisses. “Just like that.”

Shadow was just starting to feel like he had a handle of this new way of kissing when Sonic added tongue.

Shadow made a noise of alarm, and Sonic pulled back. “Too much?” he asked, winking.

“No, just… what am I supposed to do with it?”

Sonic blinked. “With my tongue?”

“Yes.”

Sonic looked like he might laugh again. Shadow held up a warning finger. “Don’t you dare laugh at me again, or I’ll get up right now.”

Sonic took a deep breath, seemed to swallow his laughter, and gave Shadow a gleeful smile. “Why don’t you try putting your tongue in my mouth, and I’ll show you?”

Shadow grimaced. “It seems rather silly.”

Sonic smirked and cupped his ear gently. “What’s that? Shadow the Hedgehog admitting he’s not good at something?”

Shadow grabbed Sonic by his bandana and kissed him, inserting his tongue into Sonic’s mouth as Sonic had done. He was nothing if not a quick study. And he wasn’t going to let this hedgehog make light of him.

Sonic moaned and sucked gently on Shadow’s tongue. It was a completely new sensation, like Sonic was pulling him deeper into the kiss and holding him captive all at once. Sonic released the suction before it had a chance to be confining or uncomfortable and slid his own tongue against Shadow’s, bridging the span of his mouth and reaching through the kiss to explore Shadow’s.

Sonic seemed to enjoy kissing with his eyes closed. Shadow had been too focused on watching the hedgehog and evaluating himself to do such a thing before, but as Sonic’s tongue moved against his and the other hedgehog traced Shadow’s quills with his fingers, Shadow’s eyes slipped closed. There was something pleasantly relaxing about doing this by feel as opposed to sight.

Sonic’s lips were pliant, his tongue adventurous. His hands were gentle and slow, more considerate than Shadow had thought the brash hedgehog capable of.

Shadow pushed up against Sonic, mirroring the pressure and speed Sonic put into his own kissing and caresses. It felt like... He felt silly for thinking it, but it felt like dancing. His mind flashed back to the silly dance parties Maria would have when she was taking a break from her research, the way she would grab his hands and dance with him. Energy and reciprocity. He’d been awkward at first—just like with this—but with time, effort, enthusiasm…

Shadow reached up and buried his fingers in some of the fur of Sonic’s quills. He gripped it firmly and brought Sonic down to meet his lips more firmly, asserting himself in the kiss. He felt Sonic falter, and then give in, letting Shadow turn and manipulate his head with the hand Shadow had knotted tightly in his fur.

Shadow pulled back and nipped at Sonic’s lips, feeling somewhat pleased with himself. “Has your request for a kiss been satisfied yet?” Even he thought he sounded smug.

Sonic grinned at him, his eyes dreamy and his body relaxed. “I dunno, you sure you don’t need more practice?” He bit his own lip and gave Shadow the side-eye. “I can probably fit you into my schedule.”

Shadow actually chuckled. Schedules, when they were stuck here together. It was laughable.

“Well, I suppose that depends on whether you want to eat the fish I caught tonight or hear me grumble about eating from the menu you managed to bribe out of the Doctor.”

Sonic’s expression snapped into one of surprise. “You caught a _fish?_ ”

Shadow blinked. “I walked right by you with it.”

Sonic pulled his lips to the side and looked away. “Yeah, but I was pointedly ignoring you because I was busy feeling sorry for myself and chewing on cardboard.” He leaned back and looked at the fridge. Then, in a flash, he was gone.

Shadow’s hand closed on the air when Sonic’s hip had been, his other hand still grasping at the space where it had held the fur between the quills on Sonic’s head. He put his hands down, feeling silly. Sonic stood at the end of the breakfast bar, poking the belly of the fish that he’d liberated from the fridge. “So how do we cook it?”

Shadow got to his feet, padded over to Sonic, and gently took the fish from him. “‘We’ won’t do anything. You will sit there,” he said, pointing to the living room side of the breakfast bar. “And walk me through the explanation Rose gave you on tea brewing.”

“Awww.” Sonic leaned on the edge of the bar, blocking Shadow’s way into the kitchen, and gave him a ridiculously sappy look. “You’re gonna cook for little old me?”

Shadow glared at him, but even he could tell it lacked its usual heat. “I’m saving you from destroying perfectly good ingredients.” He raised Sonic’s arm and went under. He heard Sonic zoom into the seat Shadow had indicated. “And trying to train your sad excuse for a memory in how to properly make tea.”

He looked up to see Sonic cradling his head in his hands, still giving him the same goofy look. Shadow looked away and turned his attention to the kitchen. He was used to working with what he had, and could gut this fish with a claw, but since Rose and the Doctor had furnished the kitchen… He found a cutting board and a few different knives. He picked one and got to work as Sonic pulled up Amy’s message on his communicator and started reciting what Amy had sent him.

There was something about that look Sonic had given him… It tugged at parts of Shadow that he’d long considered cordoned off and unreachable.

He didn’t know how to feel about it. So he ignored it, speaking up to correct Sonic here and there and getting on with his meal prep and then the cooking.

Sonic was blown away by the meal, even though it was simple. Having an oven was a luxury Shadow wasn’t used to, and he used it to crisp shavings of coconut over the top of the grilled fish and steamed shellfish.

“Whoa, Shadz, this is amazing!” Sonic said, popping another morsel into his mouth with his fingers. “How’d you learn to do this?”

Shadow lifted his own portion to his mouth with a utensil. “Necessity.” He placed the fork in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He looked up when he noticed Sonic had stopped eating. The hedgehog had that tight, worried look to his eyes again. Shadow still didn’t like it. “You asked,” he spat. Then he looked back at his dinner and grumpily put another bite in his mouth. “Don’t get upset just because I tell you the truth.”

“…I like that you tell me the truth.” Sonic’s voice was smaller than usual. Irritating. He pushed his food around with a finger on his plate. “I guess I just hadn’t really thought about it before. What it must be like for you, all alone out there.”

“Tch. I’m fine on my own.”

“Yeah, but… Who makes you chilidogs, ya know?”

“I don’t—”

Sonic held up a hand to interrupt him. “No, I don’t mean literally. I mean metaphorically. Like… I could never make this. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to all the time. And I don’t have to. My friends take care of me when I’m not up to the job.”

Shadow tried not to let that get to him, tried not to think of Maria and how she’d taken care of him.

He stabbed at his last bite of shellfish, then shoved it in his mouth. “Lucky you.”

Sonic seemed to deflate again, but Shadow couldn’t stand his pity any further. It was insulting. He turned from his seat at the breakfast bar and placed his plate in the sink. “Finish your meal or find a way to save it for later. I don’t like it when food goes to waste.”

He stalked away from the sink, around the breakfast bar, and then towards the door.

Sonic’s voice reached him as he pulled the curtain that served as a door aside. “Where are you going?”

Shadow grit his teeth, trying to control his temper. “Away,” he growled. He let the curtain fall back into place behind him as he marched out into the night. The moon was full, and the night bright with its light. Shadow shielded his eyes and looked up at it, trying to pick out the little glimmer of light that he knew was the Ark, floating up in the night sky. Even if he couldn’t see it now, the orbit took about an hour and a half. He’d get to see it eventually, if he waited long enough.

Suddenly feeling tired, he sat down on the sand and kept his eyes on the sky.

All these feelings, all these new experiences… And this cage. They made him feel lonely. It ached like a fresh wound again as he watched the sky carefully.

Maria…

What would she have to say about all this?

He wished he knew.

One of his ears flicked back as he heard Sonic’s shoe sink into sand. Sonic must have noticed, because he didn’t advance any further.

“I, uh… did the dishes for you. Only seemed fair, since you did all the cooking.”

Shadow didn’t respond, keeping his eyes on the sky. He felt like he was both here on the beach with Sonic, and a million miles away watching this scene play out. He didn’t know how to interact with it. It was new.

Sonic took another step forward. “Shadow, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was pitying you.”

“What did you mean to make it sound like?” Shadow asked. He kept his eyes on the sky, but he let his ear swivel back forward. Sonic seemed to take that as his invitation to approach. He came and sat on the sand next to Shadow, hugging his knees. He rocked gently, like he was thinking.

“I think what I meant it to sound like was like… you’re not alone right now. I’ll make you chilidogs if you want ‘em.”

“I don’t want them.”

Sonic rolled his eyes and gestured vaguely. “Metaphorically. Like, I’ll make you tea and do the dishes and stuff. That you don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

It had been a long time since he’d been anything other than by himself.

But Sonic was right. For the next twelve days, Shadow wouldn’t be by himself at all—whether he wanted to be or not.

He kept his eyes on the sky for a moment longer, then dropped his gaze to Sonic. The hedgehog was looking at him with eyes that were one part nerves and one part regret. Seemed he’d taken some of what Shadow had said about being direct to heart.

Shadow looked back to the sky, not wanting to miss the Ark. “Apology accepted.”

He saw Sonic’s body language relax out of the corner of his eye. The blue hedgehog scooted closer and mirrored Shadow’s look. “So whatcha looking at out here anyway?”

Shadow thought for a moment. It was one thing to be honest with Sonic about small things—to give him a one-word true answer because making something up wasn’t worth the energy or because the answer didn’t matter. He found himself reluctant to answer this question, though. It cut too deep.

Shadow looked away from the heavens. “Nothing.”

It wasn’t a lie. The Ark hadn’t appeared. He had been looking at nothing.

Sonic gave Shadow a sly look. “You don’t have to be bashful about stargazing gazing, Shadz.” Sonic scootched forward then stretched and sprawled out on the sand. He raised a finger towards the sky, pointing to a cluster of stars. “Knuckles calls that one ‘the great Meh Burger in the sky.’” He pointed to another one. “Sticks calls that one ‘the government agents that won’t stop watching me sleep.’”

Shadow couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter that slipped through his teeth.

Sonic turned his head, looking at Shadow instead of the stars, a soft smile on his lips. His eyes seemed happy again, like Shadow’s little laugh was some sort of treasure.

Shadow shook his head. “Those names are ridiculous.”

Sonic shrugged. “It makes them happy.” He tucked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankle over his knee. “Tails knows all the real constellations and their names. Amy knows a bunch of the stories behind them. But sometimes when the gang star-parties, it’s more fun to just take turns coming up with new ones and spinning wild stories about them. Knuckles is really good at it. So is Sticks, surprisingly.”

“…And what about you?”

Sonic gave Shadow a chagrinned look. “Uh, I play the peanut gallery most of the time.”

“Hmph.” Shadow lay down in the sand next to Sonic and gestured to the stars. “Go on then. Try your own hand at your silly star game.” He smirked a little. “I’ll even be your peanut gallery.”

“Oh, jeez… Okay. But only because dinner was so good.” Sonic hummed thoughtfully while he studied the sky. Shadow’s eyes were facing upwards, but his attention was on Sonic. The hedgehog seemed more nervous about making up a story than he ever had about fighting Shadow or any of his other adversaries. Shadow supposed, in a way, story telling demanded Sonic pour more of his vulnerable parts into the process than his fighting did. Maria had always said that creating something took more out of a person than destroying it.

He shifted his feet in the sand and crossed his ankles.

He wondered how the stars felt about being created, though.

“Okay, I’ve got something,” Sonic said. He raised his hand to the veil of the sky and traced a spikey triple W of stars. “See that spikey bit there?”

Shadow nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay.” Sonic darted his finger down a little and traced a triangle. “And the three points there?”

“Mhm.”

“I call it, ‘back to back.’ Because, according to the astronomical physicist Sonicus Al Star, this well-known constellation is an ode to the way two heroic hedgehogs—thought one may be more ambivalent about heroism than the other—saved our dimension from certain doom by working together.”

Shadow glanced over at Sonic. “It hardly qualifies as making up a story if you’re just using what happened to us three days ago up there.”

“Knuckles makes a constellation based on a Meh Burger, and I’m the one poaching content?”

Shadow shrugged.

“Look!” Sonic lifted his finger back towards the sky and pointed out a little cluster of seven stars. “There are even some stars to symbolize those weird gems we brought back with us.”

Shadow did have to wonder about those. “…Those stones are intriguing.”

Sonic rolled onto his stomach and looked down at Shadow. His side was warm against Shadow’s. “Hey. How do you think that other you was able to use them for so much evil, and yet we were able to use them to stabilize the universes?”

“What makes you think I know?”

Sonic shrugged. “You managed it with just one. And you figured it out first.”

Shadow shifted uncomfortably. “If it had been another you wrecking havoc instead of another me, I think you would have figured it out first too.”

“You mean… you got it from watching what he did?”

Shadow didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t something he’d thought about. It wasn’t even something he’d spent time consciously analyzing. He’d _felt_ the rage and hatred the other him was pouring into the gemstones. His own feelings were so high in response—rejecting everything the fake Shadow said about Maria’s wishes for revenge on the planet and the species that had killed her—that his own feelings had poured into the gem he snatched of their own accord almost as soon as he’d touched it.

And then Sonic’s hand had touched his, and the feeling had expanded tenfold. The emeralds had abandoned the false Shadow in an instant, and Sonic absorbed them almost as quickly. He almost didn’t seem phased by the turn of events, almost like wielding the power of the mysterious gemstones came to him like breathing.

The overwhelming power of the stones after that all felt like a blur. All that golden fur on him, and on Sonic… He’d always been fond of his coloration. Maria had chosen it, and he loved it for that. But… In that moment, he had been grateful to look more like Sonic than like the other him. To be distinguished from all that malevolence and hatred and pain as something other and himself.

“It was intuitive,” Shadow finally answered.

Sonic made a thoughtful noise, pushing sand around with his finger. “Well, I guess it’s good that Tails and Egghead are analyzing them.”

Shadow nodded. “Even the Doctor wouldn’t wish for a power like that to destroy our world.”

Sonic smirked. “Yeah. Half the time I feel like he just wants the attention that his schemes bring.”

Shadow hummed a small laugh and then noticed how the moon was setting towards the water. He searched the sky above him one more time, looking for the Ark in its orbit, but saw nothing. He must have missed it during Sonic’s story.

He sighed and made to stand up.

“Ah, no fair. You didn’t make a constellation for me to ridicule.”

“Heh. And I won’t.” Shadow stretched and then jerked his head to the shack. “I’m going to get in a workout before we turn in.”

“Yeah… I think Knuckles knew that punching bag would get a lot of use with you around.” Sonic’s teasing look turned reflective. “I guess I should probably try to do a run.” He looked at the perimeter of the barrier, his pensive turning into dissatisfaction. “Running in a circle just isn’t as fun as working up a sweat beating up Eggman’s robots, though.”

Shadow held his position for a moment. Then he turned back to the other hedgehog and cracked his knuckles, rolling his head to loosen up his neck and shoulders too. “Well… If we’re both in the mood to work up a sweat.” He sunk down in a defensive posture and grinned wickedly. “We could always fight each other.”

Sonic returned the grin and zoomed to his feet, dropping instantly into some leg stretches. “I suppose I did agree to be your sparring partner.” He finished his stretches and mirrored Shadow’s fighting stance. “How hard are we going?”

Shadow mulled the question over. With Sonic it had always been either Shadow was fighting him with the intention of harm, or he was teaming up with him intending to harm others. He’d asked for a sparring partner, because in the moment he’d decided it would be a fun way to justify punching the hedgehog if he got too annoying again, but Shadow wasn’t particularly irritated, and hurting Sonic would only mean Shadow would have to take care of him. That meant no real blows.

“Full speed’s fine, but no landing blows.” He narrowed his eyes. “That does mean you’ll have to acknowledge them, though, even when you don’t get hit.”

Sonic gave him a sly look. “Only so long as you acknowledge the ones you teleport away from at the last minute too.”

Shadow felt himself flush for being called out on one of his favorite evasive tactics. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and centered himself. “Holds and binds count too. Tap out if you give up.”

“Mm, so it’s grappling and phantom strikes.” Sonic bounced between his two feet. “How very you.”

Shadow teleported behind Sonic and grabbed his ankle. Sonic yelped and tried to break away, but Shadow turned, knelt, and threw Sonic forward over his shoulder with the force of his turn. Sonic cartwheeled through the air, his arms wobbling like wings as he tried to orient himself. To his credit, he did manage to land on his feet.

“Hey, no fair!” Sonic said when he landed.

Shadow smiled and teleported behind Sonic again. “What’s the matter?” he whispered in Sonic’s ear.

Sonic’s ear twitched with the breath of Shadow’s words, and Sonic zoomed clear across his sandy front yard. Shadow took the same moment to teleport away to the roof of Sonic’s shack. As he’d thought, the speedy hedgehog wasted precious seconds looking around for him. Shadow hadn’t expected him to still be cupping the ear Shadow had breathed on a moment ago. It was… cute.

Sonic swore gently under his breath, then started running. It certainly kicked up the sand, which made it harder to see, and Sonic’s direction seemed to be mostly random, which made it difficult to get the jump on him. Normally, Shadow would have sat back and waited—either for the other hedgehog to tire himself out or for a pattern to reveal itself—but today’s exercise was about sweat, not about tactics.

Shadow dived down into the middle of the small sand cloud Sonic was creating, and went low against the ground, spreading his body into as many of Sonic’s consistent paths as he could, trying to trip the blue speedster up.

Sonic tripped right over Shadow’s arm. Shadow laughed and snatched Sonic’s ankle—only for his hand to go right through it.

“Wha—?!”

Sonic came sliding out of the air on the other side of the cloud, and threw his body lengthwise over Shadow’s back. “Gotcha!” he said, tucking himself up on either side of Shadow’s ribcage, trapping Shadow against the ground. “Classic optical illusion trick. Pretty neat, right?”

“Hmph.” Shadow couldn’t say it wasn’t. “You haven’t used this against me before.”

“I usually reserve it for Knuckles, since he’s the only other person who can toss me around with brute force. And Amy. It’s better when she’s smashing copies of me than actually me…”

A small spot of anger flared in Shadow’s chest. He teleported out from under Sonic and readied a punch just above him. Sonic opened his mouth as if to say something about how Shadow wasn’t playing fair again, but then saw Shadow’s fist already bearing down on him. He cut himself off and moved out of the way so fast that a blurry blue image of him stayed behind. Shadow’s fist cut through it and sank right into the sand Sonic had just occupied. Shadow’s eyes tracked the blur to Sonic’s new position, where the other hedgehog stood looking confused. “Round two!” Shadow bellowed, before charging straight as Sonic.

A hard glint came into Sonic’s eyes, and he sank back into his posture. He matched Shadow, step for step, blow for blow. They were breaking their own rules a little now, real force behind their kicks and punches. Their blocks were solid and swift, their misdirection and repurposing of momentum fast enough that they both seemed to blur a bit.

Finally, Sonic slipped up. Shadow swept his legs out from under him without a second thought. He surged forward as Sonic went down, throwing himself forward to straddle Sonic and pin him to the ground. Sonic looked up at him panting as Shadow chambered a punch with one hand and used the other to push on of Sonic’s wrists firmly into the sand. Sonic winced as Shadow brought his fist down to his face—but Shadow stopped just before he hit. Then he unfurled his fingers and flicked Sonic in the nose.

“Ouch!”

“Don’t use tactics against me that you use against other people.”

Sonic rubbed his nose with his free hand. “What?”

“If your friends can see through them, I will too. And I’m looking for a challenge.” Shadow tried to sound condescending, but there was something else in his voice too, something he couldn’t quite place… It made him sound wounded and frenzied. It came out thinner than he meant it to.

Sonic’s eyebrows creased together as he continued to pant, and then his look turned suggestive. “Shadow… You’re not jealous, are you?”

The suggestion hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Whatever I am, it doesn’t change that you are currently in a bind. Do you surrender?” Shadow chambered his fist once more, cocking it more menacingly than he maybe needed to for a sparring match. How many times had the echidna and Rose had Sonic on his back when they were sparring with him anyway? Fewer than Shadow would by the end of the night.

“Mm, I think you’re being competitive. You didn’t break the rules until I mentioned sparring with Amy and Knuckles.”

“You could spar with anyone—but they won’t beat you the way I will.” Shadow pushed Sonic’s captive wrist further into the sand. “Now tap out.”

Sonic made a show of a long defeated sigh. Then he flashed a grin up at Shadow. “Nah.” Shadow didn’t have time to process before Sonic grabbed him with his free hand and pulled Shadow down into a kiss. Shadow was so surprised, that he released Sonic’s other hand.

Sonic was up and out from under Shadow like a shot. Shadow found himself spinning in place. Sonic must have grabbed one of his arms and spun him on his way up. Then something hit him from the side, and he went sprawling onto his back. Shadow blinked up as his arms were pinned above him and a weight he remembered from the couch straddled his hips. Sonic smiled seductively down at him. “I think you need to acknowledge the two points I’ve scored tonight,” Sonic said, leaning down and brushing his nose against Shadow’s. “Maybe then I’ll give you the one you cheated to get because you were jealous you’re not my only sparring partner.”

“Tch.” Shadow turned his head to the side. He could teleport away again, but that wouldn’t solve this problem. “That’s not it.”

“Oh?” Sonic settled his weight on top of Shadow and released Shadow’s arms, like he was settling in for a story. He even propped his head up on one of his elbows. “Then what is?”

Shadow brought his arms down and touched his wrists, making sure the gold rings of his power inhibitors were still in place, then let his arms rest on Sonic’s back. It was just where his arms landed, but it could quickly be turned into a hold of his own once this conversation was over.

Sonic seemed to like it, though, snuggling closer to Shadow.

Stupid thing.

“It’s… irrational.” Shadow sighed. “If something has been used against others, I feel I should know how to deal with it already.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Shadow grunted. “Never the less.”

“Well… I guess you’ll just have to keep sparring with me, then.”

“What?”

“I got you twice tonight. Once with something I know how to bring to fights…” He raised a hand and traced Shadow’s lips. “And one that I’ve absolutely never used before.”

Shadow blinked, then looked to Sonic’s hand, then his lips. “You’re telling me you kissed me to distract me.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

Shadow made an exasperated sound and thumped his head against the sand. “That’s not practical in an actual combat setting.”

“Oh, no way. Smooching one of Egghead’s robots? Ick! No thanks.” Sonic wiggled out of Shadow’s arms and stood up. “But, if it’s you, and the whole point is to spar and work up a sweat before bed…” He turned and held out a hand to help Shadow up, throwing him a wink. “I bet I could get used to it.”

Shadow grimaced. “It won’t keep working.”

“Ooh!” Sonic waggled his eyebrows. “Guess I’ll have to get more imaginative, then.”

Shadow rolled his eyes and took Sonic’s hand, allowing the other hedgehog to help him up. He dusted himself off once he was back on his feet. He was sticky from sweat and gritty from sand. “Sparring won’t be as useful if you turn it into a sex game.”

“Hmm.” Sonic put his arms behind his head again and looked thoughtfully up at the sky. “S’pose I could limit distraction tactics to once per sparring session. And only on the table after we’ve been going for a bit and worked up a good sweat?”

Shadow regarded Sonic coolly with one eye over his shoulder. Then he turned his gaze away and shrugged. “Fine. But realize that turnabout is fair play now.” Shadow chuckled to himself, then let his voice drop a register. “And I think one of us is a bit more susceptible to distraction tactics than the other.” He turned his head back to see Sonic swallow, his cheeks a touch darker even in the soft light from his shack. Shadow smirked a little and turned away, stretching his arms above his head. “Per our agreement, I think it’s time to start winding down. I’m going to have a shower before bed.”

“Good idea.”

Shadow took one step forward and then balked as Sonic zoomed past him in a blur of blue. That… sneaky little thief! Shadow sprang off one foot, activating his skates, and sped after Sonic. He wasn’t about to have his shower stolen out from under him and wait around for Sonic to finish while he felt more disgusting by the minute!

But Sonic had gotten a head start. By the time Shadow caught up, the water was running and Sonic had already stripped off a glove. He held his hand out under the water, testing it for temperature as he pulled his other glove off with his teeth. Shadow skid to a stop and crossed his arms, aiming a glare at Sonic.

“I believe I have first claim.”

Sonic flicked his eyes up to Shadow. He blinked and then cocked his head quizzically. He took his hand from the water, steam showing that it had reached the desired temperature, and spat his glove out into his dry hand. “What are you talking about? Aren’t we showering together?”

Shadow blinked slowly. He hadn’t even considered that as an option.

Sonic gave him a flirtatious look. “It’ll conserve water. And time,” he said in a sing-song manner, sauntering over towards Shadow. He put his foot up on the little bench Tails had installed for towels and clothes, and bent over his leg to undo the fastenings of his shoe, fixing Shadow with sultry bedroom eyes. “And I just know how you love efficiency.”

Shadow frowned harder. He did like efficiency, but… “And what exactly do I get out of letting you disrupt my shower?” he countered.

Sonic switched shoes. “Aside from getting to do your part to conserve resources, and getting to bed a few minutes earlier?”

Fair points, but still. “Yes.”

Sonic slipped his shoes off and tucked them under the bench. He sat on the edge of the bench and leaned around Shadow, wrapping one his hands around Shadow’s back. Shadow twitched as Sonic grazed his pine with the tips of his claws.

“I’ll wash your back for you,” Sonic said, his voice taking on a bargaining tone.

Maybe even help you wash those tough to reach places between your quills?” He spread his legs and pulled Shadow to him, putting his other hand on Shadow’s back too and tipping his chin up to rest against Shadow’s sternum. “How about that?” Sonic’s fingers wandered higher, pressing at the tight muscles in Shadow’s back from all of the punching he’d done yesterday. Shadow’s eyes slipped closed and his stance slackened marginally. He sighed gently through his nose, the pressure and circles of Sonic’s clever fingers easing the tension in his muscles.

He hadn’t expected Sonic to have a good reason.

This would suffice.

“Fine.” Shadow stepped away, breaking out of the circle of Sonic’s arms and unfastening the power inhibitors on his wrists so he could take off his bracers and gloves. “But only so long as you keep doing that too.”

Sonic grinned and sprang back towards the shower. “Great. Meet you in there, then!”

Shadow folded his gloves and set them down on the bench next to Sonic’s mussed ones. He looked at them as he fastened his power inhibitors back into place on his wrists. So similar and yet so different… He decided not to fold Sonic’s gloves for him and sat down on the bench. He unhurriedly removed his shoes while Sonic started humming in the shower. Seemed Sonic was eager to get his own wash over with as quickly as possible. Something about that nagged at the edge of Shadow’s mind. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He slid his shoes under the bench, refastened his second set of inhibitors around his ankles, and went to join Sonic in the shower.

For all that the Fox was a bit of gearhead, Shadow couldn’t fault his sense of aesthetics. The shower was made of sealed wood, with the top open to the sky and the trees. There was definitely room enough for both of them without it being too cramped or too spacious, and there was even a small fold out bench that Shadow was sure was for doing stretched under the warm water more than it was for anything else. A small corner shelf held a few bottles, no doubt filled with different soaps and cleansing solutions. Shadow tended to use water and the oils in his fur for grooming, but he could see the appeal of having different solutions for fur and skin care. Sonic’s fur was frothed with one of them when Shadow opened the door. Sonic looked up, ceased humming, and spun under the spray to rinse. Then he stepped out of the way, selected a bottle, and gestured for Shadow to take his place in the stream.

Shadow eyed the bottle suspiciously. “This won’t strip my coat with sulfates, will it?”

Sonic scoffed. “As if Tails would ever stock a shower with something that would harm someone’s coat or quills.” He pointed quizzically to Shadow’s inhibitors. “Those stay on?”

Shadow put a hand protectively over one of the gold bangles on his wrists. “These always stay on.”

Sonic opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He shrugged and lathered the soap between his wet hands. “Whatever you say, big guy. Now come on, get wet and turn around.”

Shadow walked into the stream of water, allowing himself to linger under the warm water for a moment as he advanced on Sonic. Then he lifted his hand and placed in on the wall behind Sonic, trapping the other hedgehog between the soap shelf and Shadow’s arm. “You managed to reach my back just fine from here before.” He tipped his chin up challengingly. “Can’t do it again?”

“Oh ho ho!” Sonic laughed, clearly hearing the challenge in Shadow’s voice. “If you want me to hug you—oh, how did you put it?” Sonic grinned and wrapped his arms around Shadow. He started working the shampoo into Shadow’s fur and gave Shadow a sultry look. “All you gottta do is ask.”

Turning his back. Asking for things. All these vulnerable, annoying pleasantries that Shadow wasn’t sure he could bring himself to waste on someone who wasn’t Maria. It had been easy to let her behind him. Easy to admit when he wanted or needed something.

Not so much anymore.

He groaned gently as Sonic’s fingers moved from light touches to stronger ones, wandering up his spine and in between the two larger mounds of quills on his back. His body slackened again, more of his weight going into the hand against the wall.

Sonic hummed gently and traced the curve of Shadow’s shoulder with his nose. “I could do better if you’d let me get behind you. More leverage. Could see what I’m doing.” He shifted and slipped his leg between Shadow’s, stepping forward so that his thigh rubbed gently against the slit of Shadow’s sheath.

Shadow hummed low in his throat and stepped in himself, pressing Sonic back against the wall with the weight of his body. Sonic sucked in a breath and his fingers tightened in Shadow’s fur. “That’s too bad. I like you where you are.”

Sonic smiled, looking giddy and love-struck like he had when Shadow had made dinner. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Who wants to move? Not me. What idiot came up with that idea?” He bit his lip and moved his leg gently, rubbing his thigh insistently against Shadow.

Shadow gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, trying not to let Sonic affect him. “Why are you doing that?”

Sonic nuzzled him. “If you don’t want me to, I’ll stop, but… You got me off once last night. Even arrangements like ours should have even scoreboards.”

Shadow rasped out a husky laugh, shifting against Sonic’s leg to get a better angle. “Leave it to you to turn this into some kind of competitive metaphor…”

“Well… If keeping an even score is competitive when it comes to orgasms, then guess I’m guilty.” Sonic nipped gently at Shadow’s mouth. Shadow hummed again as Sonic’s teeth left a tingling feeling over his lips. He arched his back as Sonic’s fingers went back to carding through his fur and working the knots from his muscles. But then Sonic stopped, his hands drawing away almost nervously. “You… still haven’t said yes, though.”

Shadow sighed. “For someone who can read body language so well in a fight, you’re remarkably dense.” He grabbed Sonic by the face and kissed him, snapping his hips against Sonic’s leg more insistently. He wasn’t about to let this hedgehog get him half hard and then walk away, not after the deal they’d struck. Besides, it would be more efficient to get it all done in the shower and then pass out clean without potentially getting anyone’s bedding dirty with sweat or other fluids.

Sonic moaned enthusiastically into the kiss. His tongue traced Shadow’s lips, and Shadow remembered the other part of kissing Sonic had taught him earlier. He slid his tongue against Sonic’s, glancing and teasing. The other hedgehog pressed forward, as if he were trying to get more. Shadow could feel Sonic’s own erection forming against his stomach now.

“Come on, Shadz,” Sonic said between kisses. “Switch places with me.”

Shadow hummed thoughtfully and kissed Sonic deeply, the way the other hedgehog seemed to want. He swore he could feel Sonic’s knees turn to jelly as the other hedgehog clung to him and kissed him back. “I don’t know. You might fall.”

Sonic laughed, the sound thin and breathless. He dropped a hand between them and caught Shadow’s erection loosely in his hand. “That’s kind of the point.” He licked his lips and gave Shadow a light stroke.

Shadow’s smugness evaporated as Sonic’s hand moved. The sound he made surprised even him, and he had to throw his other hand up against the wall to keep himself from falling forward and crushing the delicious movement of Sonic’s hand between them.

The look on Sonic’s face was difficult to describe. He looked flushed, though whether that was from the heat of the shower or the heat of his lust, Shadow couldn’t say. He looked eager, his eyes half-lidded, and his mouth open in a loose smile, his tongue contained just barely behind his lips as it roamed the sharp points of his canines. More than anything, he looked hungry. “Come on, Shadz,” he breathed, stroking Shadow again. “Lemme have it.”

Shadow thoughts had narrowed to the feeling of Sonic’s body against his. He’d… never had another person touch him like this before. Only his own hands. It was overwhelming. The variability. The lack of control. It was horrific and exhilarating all at once.

Like his powers had been before Maria had made his inhibitors.

He took a breath through his nose, centering himself, breathing in the scent of water and soap and Sonic’s warm body. Then he nodded.

Sonic nuzzled his nose against Shadow’s gleefully, and then ducked under Shadow’s arm. He kept his hands on Shadow’s waist, helped guide Shadow’s back against the wall, and then sunk down on his knees in front of Shadow. His expression was almost reverent as he took Shadow’s cock in his hands.

Shadow wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. He thought back to what Sonic had done the night before, and then laid one of his hands softly in Sonic’s quills. Sonic looked up at him with a goofy grin on his face, and then winked. “Thanks for the meal,” he said cheekily, and then licked Shadow’s penis from root to tip before popping it eagerly into his mouth.

Shadow threw his head back and moaned, gripping the wall hard in an effort to keep from sliding down it. This was nothing like the way he stimulated himself. It was warmer. It was more dynamic, as Sonic moved—fast, slow, and then unbelievably fast again.

“Fuck,” Shadow groaned, his hips hitching forward. He pressed back against the wall harder, trying to keep still and not choke Sonic by accident.

He was losing this battle. His hand was slipping. _He_ was starting to slip down the wall. He wasn’t used to standing when he masturbated normally to begin with. Keeping himself upright when someone else was doing it was proving to be harder than anticipated.

Suddenly, Shadow’s legs were scooped out from under him. Shadow gave a small gasp and looked down. Sonic had swept Shadow’s legs and then hitched them up over his shoulders. Shadow curled around Sonic, breathless and blown away. He was so warm. The steam and water, Sonic’s mouth, the rhythm and balance of it all…

“Sonic…” he managed to grit out. “I’m close…”

Sonic hummed something affirmative around Shadow’s cock, and it was too much.

Shadow cried out. It started low and rose as Sonic continued to suck. Then it all broke away so forcefully that Shadow thought his hips might crack with the force of it. He bucked up into Sonic’s mouth, and Sonic swallowed around him, struggled, and found his rhythm again. He kept lapping at Shadow until the black hedgehog was just a quivering panting spent mess against the wall.

Thank the stars they had done this in the shower…

Shadow tried to catch his breath as Sonic pulled away and set Shadow back on his feet. Shadow kept one had on the wall to make sure he wouldn’t fall over. “I think I’ll need to wash my coat again,” he murmured.

Sonic chucked, his voice still husky with lust. “Gimme two shakes and I’ll help you clean up.” He closed his eyes, bit his lip, and seemed to vibrate with the speed at which he moved his hand over his own erection. He tipped forward and made a small sound as he broke, spilling onto the shower floor. Then he was up and washing his hands, looking as energetic and spry as ever. It made Shadow tired just looking at him. “Okay,” Sonic said, rinsing his hands and then going back for some more of the shampoo he’d used on Shadow’s fur earlier. “Up for a real wash this time?”

Shadow grabbed some shampoo himself and they worked as a team to wash themselves and each other. Shadow felt boneless and oddly light. Drying off and brushing their teeth went quickly. Setting up the bed was swift too. Sonic didn’t argue when Shadow turned off the lights, and Shadow didn’t question it when Sonic curled up next to him on the bed instead of in his hammock.

But even though everything was as Shadow had bargained for it to be earlier, Shadow still felt restless. Something about what Sonic had just done for him made him feel like he owed the other hedgehog a little more of himself than he’d been willing to show before. Words welled up in his throat as Sonic’s breath swelled over the bangle of his power inhibitor and tickled the skin of Shadow’s wrist beneath it.

“My bracelets and anklets,” he said finally. “They stay on because they help me regulate my powers.”

“Hm?” Sonic mumbled. He sounded like he was already half asleep.

“My bangles,” Shadow repeated. He didn’t know why he felt like this was important to say now, but he did. He clutched one of them around the blue hedgehog that had wormed his way into Shadow’s arms. “I keep them on because without them, my powers can be dangerous to those around me.”

“Huh,” Sonic said. He was quiet for a moment. “Guess I should thank you for keeping ‘em on in the shower then.” He chuckled. “You mighta destroyed me, what with the orgasm you were havin’.”

“Don’t give yourself airs.”

“Mm, not airs.” Sonic gave Shadow a sleepy, warm kiss. “G’night, Shadz. Thanks for not killin’ me in the shower.” He collapsed back down on Shadow’s chest, and seemed to fall asleep instantly.

Shadow lay awake for a long time, stroking Sonic’s quills, and trying to figure out how this had all happened—and what this new warm light feeling in his chest was. His mind felt clear, but something still nagged at him. He didn’t figure out what it was before Sonic’s rhythmic breathing pulled him away from his thoughts and into the sweet darkness of sleep.


	3. Day 3: Recollections

For the second time in two days, Shadow woke up second. The smell of food and tea tickled his nose, and he breathed it in gently. Deep slow breaths, savoring it as the smell pulled him gently from sleep.

He nuzzled his pillow and then stretched, humming gently at the luxurious feeling. Then he sat up and cracked his eyes open just in time to see Sonic taking the tea leaves from the pot.

Sonic caught him looking and waved the tea leaves victoriously at Shadow. “Caught ‘em this time. Should be perfect, if I’ve got anything to say about it.

The edge of Shadow’s mouth tipped up in a half-smile and he laughed through his nose. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said. But he didn’t mean it. He knew he didn’t mean it. It was enough to be pulled from sleep by the welcome scents of breakfast, and wake to a friendly voice and familiar banter. The tea didn’t need to be perfect. And even if it was, he probably wouldn’t say so. But it was there, and so was Sonic. Sonic, who was coordinating breakfast, who was bringing distraction tactics to their sparring matches, who had lifted Shadow up by the legs and made him come harder than he ever had in his life.

Shadow shook the thought fondly from his head, kicked himself out of bed and dressed quickly. Then he went and sat at the breakfast bar. He didn’t want to keep this “perfect” cup of tea waiting.

He closed his eyes as he picked up the cup Sonic had poured for him and took in the scent, feeling at peace. For the first time in a long time, it was as if he and the world weren’t at odds. There was nothing to change, protect, or destroy. Just him in this fragile moment, content with everything as it was.

He sipped his tea and let the perfectly steeped taste of the Darjeeling leaves wash over his tongue languidly before swallowing. It was perfect. Just like Maria used to make.

And with that thought, the moment came crashing down around him.

His cup clattered into its saucer, sloshing tea over the side.

Sonic jumped and looked up, startled. “Was it that bad?” he asked, setting plates laden with eggs, sausage, and potatoes.

Shadow grit his teeth and covered his face, hot tears sliding out of his squeezed-shut eyes. He couldn’t answer.

Maria.

How dare he feel at peace when she was still dead? When the world that killed her still existed? When he was trapped in a bubble and couldn’t fulfill her last wish to watch over the planet and keep it safe? Who was he to sit here, _happy_ , drinking her favorite tea?

His jaw contracted harder and he squeezed his tea cup, his claws scoring the side with a horrible sound even through his gloves.

“Shadz!” Two hands wrapped around his, jolting Shadow out of his spiral. He gasped and looked up to see Sonic giving him the most bewildered and concerned look Shadow had ever seen on the hedgehog’s face. Sonic scanned his face, then leaned even further over the bar to brush a tear from Shadow’s cheek. “What’s wrong?” he asked, more compassion and gentleness in his voice than Shadow could bear. Shadow flinched away as Sonic tried to brush away more of his tears. But Sonic kept his grip on Shadow’s hand, seeming reluctant to let go.

Shadow pulled, trying to get away. “Let go,” he said.

Sonic’s look turned hard. He squeezed Shadow’s hand gently. “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

Shadow pulled again. “No.” Shadow looked away and closed his eyes again. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed this to happen. Was he really so easy that a good fight and shower sex with his rival was all it took for him to forget what was really important? “Leave me alone.”

“Uh, no?” Sonic removed the tea cup and saucer from Shadow’s hand and placed it to the side. Then he laced the fingers of his free hand with Shadow’s. “You made a deal with me, buster, to make sure we were both comfy during quarantine. And lemme tell you, none of this feels comfy to me. So fucking spill it, or lose your tea privileges forever.”

“Fine!” Shadow barked. “It’s no more than I deserve.”

That seemed to take Sonic by surprise. “W… What?”

Shadow didn’t feel like explaining. He ripped his hand away from Sonic, and spun on the stool, turning his back to the other hedgehog. He massaged his hand, trying to get the memory of Sonic’s comforting touch out of his skin. “Nothing,” he grit out. “Now fuck off.”

Sonic didn’t say anything for a few moments. Shadow expected him to throw a punch. Maybe speed away outside and take on some of his own training. What he didn’t expect was to hear Sonic’s elbows hit to counter and the sound of the hedgehog sigh. “Why the hell would anyone think they don’t deserve tea?” Sonic said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard—and I listen to Knuckles’s theories on the universe.”

Sonic moved and Shadow turned his head when the sound of tea being poured into the other cup reached his ears. Sonic pushed the cup towards Shadow, and then started to examine the damage to the other cup. “Amy has this thing she always likes to spout at us whenever any of us are working too hard.” Sonic stood up straight, closed his eyes, and raised a finger like he was lecturing. All in all, it was a fairly good mimic of Rose’s body language. “You cannot pour from an empty vessel.” He intoned it like he’d heard it a hundred times and was sick of it.

“Tch.” Shadow glared defensively. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Sonic picked up the damaged cup again and poured the tea that it was holding out. “That’s what I said the first time too. I’ll give you the cliff notes version so you don’t have to sit through Amy’s self-improvement course on the subject.” He turned back and tipped the empty cup out over the full one he’d set in front of Shadow. “It means you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anything else.” He put the cup aside, his point made, and reached out for the one in front of Shadow. He slipped his fingers through the handle, took a sip, made the same disgusted face he’d made yesterday, and then put it back down. “So whatever it is about this tea that’s setting you off? Gotta deal with it. Otherwise it’s just gonna keep happening, and you’re gonna tell me to fuck off one too many times, and then we’re gonna wreck my shack fighting about it.”

“I could wreck your shack right now if I wanted to.”

“And then where would we sleep for the next two weeks, hm?”

“One week, five days.”

“Better part of five days, but four days and…” Sonic checked his communicator. “…fifteen hours to be exact.”

Shadow was silent, no more room to be pedantic.

Sonic pushed the tea towards him again. “Come on. Don’t let it go to waste.”

Shadow turned back to the breakfast bar and set his hands lightly around the cup. It was warm. He lifted it gently to his lips, and took a sip. It still made him want to cry. He swallowed and darted his eyes over to the other cup and the cracks in the porcelain. “Sorry. About the cup.”

Sonic shrugged. “Amy wouldn’t have given it to me if she wasn’t okay with me breaking it. But don’t worry.” He smiled. “I’ll tell her it was my fault, since apparently my tea skills still aren’t up to snuff.”

Shadow looked into the depths of his new cup of tea and shook his head. “No… It’s perfect.” He sighed and closed his eyes, holding the warms of the tea closer to his chest. “That’s the problem.”

“Wait… So I _did it_ and _that’s_ what set you off?”

Shadow took another sip. It was like he was washing away the clog in his throat that kept him from talking about this with every mouthful. “It reminds me of someone. Hers tasted just the same. But she’s gone now. I promised her I’d protect this planet before she died. Instead I’m stuck in a bubble eating breakfast, drinking tea, and…” His throat closed and he grit his teeth again. He couldn’t finish the sentence. It was completely irrational to think that Maria wouldn’t want him to be happy. But he still felt guilty. She was dead and he was happy. These two things couldn’t exist at once.

Sonic put his hand on Shadow’s again and Shadow met his eyes.

“What was her name?” Sonic asked gently.

Shadow’s eyebrows drew together with pain. He passed this thumb over the lip of the warm cup and then spoke. “Maria. Maria Robotnick.”

“Wait, Robotnick like Egghead?”

Shadow nodded. “I believe they are related, though perhaps distantly.”

“Well, I assume she had more sense than he does if you cared about her so much.” Sonic chuckled. “You won’t even give Eggman the time of day.”

Shadow shrugged. “All his schemes are silly. They don’t achieve anything.” He turned his eyes to the door. He wished it was dark out again, so he could see the Ark. “She dreamed of something bigger.”

“Okay, so there was this lady named Maria and she was super important to you, and something happened. Now she’s not here, and you are, and you promised her you’d be that something bigger that she dreamed of before she went.” Sonic arched an eyebrow. “I got that right so far?”

Shadow turned it over in his mind for a moment, the nodded.

“Hmm.” Sonic stood back and crossed is arms. “Sounds to me like you’re putting more pressure on yourself than she would have wanted you to, Shadz.”

“You didn’t know her.”

“Maybe not, but I can tell you for sure if she’s a wonderful as you say she is that she wouldn’t want you breaking out of this bubble and potentially exposing the whole world to a virus that’s hyper contagious and could overwhelm our healthcare structure—such as it is—in a matter of weeks.”

Shadow flinched. He… hadn’t thought of it that way.

Sonic pointed to the ground. “She’d want you to stay right here and keep everyone safe. And she wouldn’t want you to feel like a prisoner while you did. She’d probably even make you tea and bring you the best ingredients she could so you’d eat well and be happy while you chilled here, keeping everyone safe from inside this bubble.”

Shadow gave Sonic a pleading look. He knew Sonic was right, but it still hurt. It was still hard to believe that he was allowed to enjoy a single moment without her.

“She scarified herself for me.”

Sonic blinked, visibly thrown off his stride. Then his expression turned more serious. “Then she definitely wanted you to be happy, Shadz.”

Shadow raised his hand to cover his eyes again as the tears sprung up anew. Sonic was around the bar in an instant, hugging Shadow close. Shadow let Sonic draw him in, let the warmth of the other hedgehog’s fur seep into him. He clasped his own arms around the small of Sonic’s back and let his tears fall into the hedgehog’s blue fur.

He’d never told anyone.

He didn’t know what to say next. He tried not to shudder as he cried.

Sonic stroked his back, dropped kisses to his quills, and made soft sounds with his mouth. “It’s okay, Shadz… It’s okay.”

It took time, but the tears eventually slowed. Sonic kept his arms in place even as Shadow pulled back. “You alright?” he asked.

Shadow nodded, and reached for his tea. It was lukewarm. He finished it and put his cup back. Sonic refilled it, and steam rose from the cup again. Shadow smiled a little.

“Thanks,” he said, reaching for it. The next sip was as comforting as the first had been. This time, it didn’t make him seize up with guilt and pain.

Sonic shrugged. “Hey, I told you I’d do this for you. No need to thank me.” He put the pot down and stepped away. “You eat. I’m gonna step outside and make some calls—especially about those ingredients you asked for.”

“What about your breakfast?”

Sonic zoomed back over to the other side of the counter, scarfed his breakfast faster than Shadow thought it was possible for someone to eat and still keep food down, and then zoomed right back to where he’d been.

“There. _Now_ I’m going to make those calls.”

Shadow felt a little warm bubble of hope swell in his chest. “Thanks,” he said again.

Sonic shook his head and waved his hands in front of him, crossing and uncrossing them. “No, stop it, I said I would. Just eat your breakfast.” He made for the front door and shot Shadow a finger before he went out. “And try to be yourself when I get back, yeah? I don’t know how to handle this soft, vulnerable nice guy who keeps thanking me for things he bargained for yesterday…” He raised his eyes skyward like he couldn’t believe what had become of his morning, and stepped outside.

Shadow hummed a soft laugh to himself and reached for the fork Sonic had laid out for him. It was strange to feel like he was still getting the better of the blue hedgehog even by being soft and crying. Made him feel more like himself even if his nose was stuffed up and his eyes felt like sandpaper. He chewed and wiped at his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Certainly he’d done it since that horrible day… He knew he’d cried a lot then. Probably enough to make up for the years of forgetting to.

He finished his breakfast and the rest of the tea in the pot, thumbing through one of the science fiction stories that had been left on the table with a “From the Library of Miles ‘Tails’ Prower” sticker in the front cover, not really taking it in.

He felt more like himself with a little food inside of him and a book in his hand. He’d read this one before, but it was nice to know the fox’s taste in literature wasn’t completely useless—and to have something familiar with a happy ending.

He wondered if Maria would have liked this series.

Perhaps if the science-end of things was realistic.

A small pang went through him, but he turned the page and rode it out until it passed.

He closed the book when the tea ran out, and then got up to go find Sonic. He still wasn’t back. How long could a few calls take?

Shadow went out the front door and saw Sonic sitting on one of the beach chairs under his sun shade, his communicator raised up to his eyelevel. Shadow squinted and could just make out the image of Sonic’s friends on the other hedgehog’s wrist.

“So let me get this straight,” Rose’s voice said, tinny and sardonic over the communicator. “He was fine, and then he wasn’t, and that’s it?”

Sonic grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “Yes?”

“Care to give us a little more context, Sonic?”

“Listen, Amy… It’s just personal, and Shadz didn’t give me the okay to share, and you’re the one who’s always going on about how we shouldn’t violate people’s privacy.”

Knuckles voice piped up from the background. “We’re calling him Shadz now?”

“ _I’m_ calling him Shadz. You know nicknames are part of my distinctive character voice.”

Rose’s voice returned with a sigh. “And you think the trigger was the tea?”

Knuckles brandished a small fist. “Yeah, Sonic! Why did you have to be so bad at the tea?!”

“It wasn’t bad, it was good! That was the problem.”

“Why were you so good at the tea?!”

“Knuckles, enough,” Rose said. “It’s a little hard to be helpful without knowing anything else, Sonic, but from the sound of it, it sounds like a panic attack?”

“Panic can attack people?!” Knuckles sounded alarmed. Shadow saw the great galoot raise his fists and look around, trying to figure out just how to fight this new foe. “How do we fight it?!”

“Yeah, not to be obnoxious, but… what Knux said.”

The feral badger pipped up before Rose could get through her world-weary sigh. “Are we sure it wasn’t just government mind control? That would explain his quick shift in mood.”

Sonic laughed and shook his head. “No, Sticks, for the last time, it wasn’t government agents. Good thought, though.”

Rose lifted her finger and straightened her posture, taking on exactly the pose Sonic had parodied before. “A panic attack is when someone becomes overwhelmed by their feelings. It’s usually triggered by fear or discomfort, reaches a peak remarkably quickly, and can include all of the symptoms you listed—the shortness of breath, the shaking, the crying, the way his heart was hammering against his chest. Plus, whatever it was about the tea being good makes sense as a trigger if it’s linked to this personal stuff you won’t tell us about.”

“Yeah… I think it is. But, again… What Knux said; what do I do if it happens again?”

Rose shrugged. “Calm him down. If it were one of us, I’d say give him a hug, but—”

Knuckles interrupted her. “We can fight it with hugs?” He immediately picked up Sticks and held her against his chest.

The badger patted him good naturedly on the head. “Good job, Knuckles. You won.”

Amy lifted a hand to hide her smile. “Okay, but this is Shadow we’re talking about. He’s used to his space, and I honestly can’t tell you want to do without knowing more about what upset him and what you did to calm him down this time.”

“It’s okay, Ames. I think having the framework will help.”

“Great. Then I’ll send you some different teas. Some other options for the mornings, and something with relaxing herbs for the evening, just in case. And whatever it is this personal stuff is, just try not to step on it. Be there, and listen, but don’t push him to share or you might aggravate it again. And… this might sound weird, but joy is a very vulnerable emotion. So if he really was happy and then suddenly not okay, it might help to make him feel safe. I don’t know how you do that for a person like Shadow, but if you can figure it out, it might help.”

“Thanks, Ames. I’ll do my best.”

Rose scoffed. “Do better than your best, or we’ll be picking pieces of you out of your shack and trying to contain a dangerous outbreak at the same time.”

The fox finally broke away from whatever work he’d been doing in the background to comment. “Well, Shadow probably can’t break through Dome-pocalypse, so hopefully we won’t have to worry about that last part.”

“Right,” Sonic said. “But speaking of new tea and being trapped in an unbreakable dome for the foreseeable future and hopefully not getting turned into a game of fifty-two-pick-up by my new roommate, I was wondering if we could maybe get some raw ingredients in here?”

“Sonic, I thought we went over how trying to cook for Shadow was a bad idea,” Rose drawled.

“They’re not for me, they’re for him!”

“Hmm. Shadow cooking.” The echidna rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound like the reclusive destructive guy we know.”

Sonic leaned back and rolled his eyes. “How do you think he fed himself when he was being reclusive, Knux?”

“Using his teleportation powers to steal chilidogs from unsuspecting hedgehogs?” Knuckles said.

“Nah, he doesn’t really care for chilidogs.”

There was a universal gasp of horror from the other side of the line.

“How have you not killed each other yet?” the badger asked.

“Uh… We’ve found our ways.”

Shadow smirked. “Ways” was putting it rather lightly, he felt.

“Yeah, Sonic,” the fox said. “Eggman and I can rig up a way to get you some fresh ingredients. Any requests?”

“Ugh, don’t ask me. I couldn’t make a balanced meal if I tried. Just like… healthy stuff? But like… _please_ don’t shower me with greens and only greens.”

The fox chuckled. “I think we can manage to strike a balance. It’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow.”

“That’s okay, I think we can manage. Apparently we can get some ingredients around the shack too? Which is wild?”

Rose shook her head while Sticks muttered something about Sonic’s clear lack of preparation for the apocalypse.

The fox just looked pleased. “Nice! I should warn you, though… Eggman might demand to patent any of the recipes you come up with as payment. He’s got a real culinary streak, as it turns out.”

“Well, he can take that up with Shadow if he wants to.”

“Hahaha! Maybe he won’t after all.”

“Speaking of the old Egghead, where is he?”

The fox jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “He’s running some more tests on those rocks you two brought back. They’re really interesting. Their composition seems to change depending on who’s around them, and their power seems nearly limitless. With power like that, it makes sense that you and Shadow were able to remain stable long enough to take down the other Shadow.”

“Yeah, sure made surviving the vacuum of space a lot easier too…”

Shadow shifted and leaned against one of the supports of Sonic’s porch, settling in as the discussion continued. For some reason, hearing Sonic talk to his friends was grounding, in its own way. The porch squeaked a little under his weight, and Sonic looked up and saw him.

“Alright, gang, I gotta go. But keep me updated on stuff, yeah?”

The echidna answered with a salute that the badger mirrored, while the fox returned to his work and offered the screen a thumbs up. “You got it, Sonic!”

Rose rolled her eyes fondly at them. “Try not to go too crazy in there.”

“No promises, but I’ll try.” Sonic ended the call, and then rolled over onto his stomach, looking up at Shadow. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry you had to hear all that.”

“I didn’t mind.” Shadow descended the steps of the wrap-around porch and sat on the beach chair next to Sonic.

Sonic pushed some sand around with his finger and flicked his eyes cautiously up at Shadow. “Feeling better?”

Shadow closed his eyes and took a breath the fresh sea air. It was warm outside, another sunny day. The wind carried the scent of green growing things and salt in equal measure. “Yes,” he said, kicking his legs up onto the chair and leaning back on it.

He heard Sonic shift, and cracked an eye to watch the blue hedgehog squirm. “How much of that did you hear?”

Shadow shut his eyes again, and smiled. Sonic’s worry was almost adorable. “Enough not to be angry at you for sharing the barest version of events with your friends.”

Sonic let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. That saves me some explaining.”

“Still, though…” Shadow felt Sonic freeze up next to him, then let him off the hook. “It’s a shame about those ingredients not being available until tomorrow.”

The nervous energy around Sonic shattered as the blue hedgehog almost fell off of his beach chair laughing. “Oh, Shadz, you really had me going there.” Sonic picked himself back up and sat up fully on the chair. “Well, if you think we can scrounge up another day’s worth around here, I’ll help. You’re gonna have to show me where to look, though.”

Shadow hummed an acknowledgement, turning over what might be available in his mind. Fish was probably still in steady supply. They could start there. Maybe the tree line had some young palm saplings that could be harvested for their hearts too. Best start there while they digested, work up a sweat and then wash it off with a swim. It was hot enough that he could do with a swim.

“Alright then,” he said, kicking himself upright. “Let’s see what we can find.”

Shadow had been right, there had been some smaller palms ripe for the taking hiding in the tree line. Sonic proved to be an asset in finding and plucking them once Shadow showed him what to look for. They even managed to identify an acai palm and a date palm on the property and within their reach. Shadow hovered with his shoes while Sonic sat in the trees and listened to which pieces of fruit were ready to pick and which were best to leave. They came away with a few small bunches of acai berries and a handful or two of dates. They’d make a nice snack later, especially if they chilled in the fridge now. They stashed their findings in the kitchen, and then returned to the beach for a quick cold drink—tooth rotting soda for Sonic, and some fresh coconut water for Shadow. Shadow didn’t miss the way Sonic’s eyes lingered on his biceps as Shadow ripped open the immature green nut for its potassium rich juice. He shot Sonic a sly look after he did it, and smiled to himself as the other hedgehog ripped his eyes away and blushed.

Shadow sipped his coconut water, the ice in his cup cooling it to just the right temperature. He set his cup aside and took off his shoes. “Ready for the next part?” he asked.

Sonic blinked, one arm tucked lounging behind his head and the other holding his soda. He didn’t look like he was expecting to go anywhere for quite some time. “We’re not done?”

“No protein,” Shadow explained. “Gotta grab ourselves some of that.”

“Uh, sure.” Sonic raised an eyebrow at Shadow’s shoes as the black hedgehog replaced his power inhibitors on his ankles. “We gotta take off our shoes for this?”

Shadow stripped off his gloves and then replaced his wrist inhibitors too. “Unless you want to get your sneakers full of sea water, then yes, I’d advise it.”

Sonic’s soda can crinkled in his hand as Sonic tensed up. “W-wait. Sea water? Who said anything about sea water?!”

Now it was Shadow’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Yes, where did you think fish lived?”

“Well… I mean… Didn’t Sticks leave us a fishing rod in all that survival gear she gave us? That’s what you used yesterday, right?”

Shadow looked at Sonic’s tight grip on his soda can, listened to the escalating pitch of his voice, and made an educated guess.

“Sonic,” he said. “You can swim, can’t you?”

Sonic’s shoulders jumped further towards his ears defensively. “You have no idea how mean the kids in the beginning classes can be.”

“You live on the beach.”

“There’s plenty to do on the beach that isn’t swimming!”

Shadow shook his head. He finished his coconut water, put down his glass on the little table between the beach chairs, and then rose. “I can’t believe this. Take off your shoes, we’re going swimming.”

“No way, I just told you—!”

Shadow grabbed Sonic’s hand, pulled him up from his chair, and tugged him against Shadow’s own body. Sonic’s voice dropped off with the momentum, and he swallowed nervously when it ended, his soda can still clutched tightly in his hand. Shadow plucked the soda can from Sonic’s hand and leaned around Sonic, close enough that he could kiss Sonic’s neck if he just dipped his head. He placed the can next to his empty coconut water glass. “We’re going swimming,” he said again. “I’ll teach you.”

Sonic shivered, and then looked away, looking petulant and embarrassed, but quietly took off his gloves and then his shoes when Shadow released him. He left them on the beach chair and then crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re not gonna catch any fish with me in the water.”

Shadow grinned and pulled Sonic towards the ocean. “Besides the fact that you’re highly underestimating me and I most certainly will catch something, that’s still a risk I’m prepared to take.” He smirked over his shoulder. “Especially if it means I get to see you splash around like a fool as you learn to do something even children can do.”

Sonic gave him a scandalized look, blushing fiercely. “You’re going to make this up to me later,” he grumbled.

“Once we catch a fish, I intend to.” Shadow scanned the beach, looking for a nice shallow place where there was enough water to swim in, but Sonic would still be able to stand up if he needed to. He found a good spot, and took a few steps into the surf.

“No, I mean…” Sonic pulled back on Shadow’s hand and stepped in to lock his body against Shadow’s. They stood with Shadow’s feet in the waves, and Sonic’s in the sand. Sonic dragged a hand down Shadow’s torso and then pulled Shadow’s hips against his. “You’re going to make this up to me.”

Shadow blinked, then let one of his fangs slide out from under his lips. “Maybe if you manage to do more than float, speedy-boy.”

Then he whirled Sonic around and threw him into the water.

Sonic’s eyes went wide with fear as he realized what was happening. He made a strangled sound that cut off as Shadow teleported behind him in the water and caught him.

Sonic blinked and looked around, seeming dazed that he wasn’t drowning in the chest-high water. Shadow leaned forward and nuzzled Sonic’s ear. “See?” he said, taking a step back and dragging Sonic gently through the water. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Sonic gave Shadow a terrified look. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

Shadow rolled his eyes, and turned Sonic over in the water, guiding Sonic’s arms around his neck. “Just hold on. Get used to it. Kick your legs a little if you feel like it. See how you move in the water.”

“That’s the problem,” Sonic said, clinging to Shadow’s neck, his ears pressed back flat against his head. “I can never go fast enough in water before I run out of air.”

“Ah,” Shadow said, taking measured steps back and pulling Sonic easily through the water. “So that’s it. You can’t match your speed on land.”

“Of course I can’t!”

Shadow chuckled and turned in a circle. “No one can, Sonic. We weren’t built for the water. But that doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of it.”

“Nggh…” Sonic clung closer and said nothing.

Shadow was torn between laughing again and drawing the other hedgehog closer. He settled for stroking a hand down Sonic’s body to get the other hedgehog to relax. “Come on. Stop curling in on yourself and kick your legs. I bet if you kick them fast enough, you might even be able to get close to as fast as you go on land.”

Sonic gave him a skeptical look. “How is kicking ever going to be faster than running.”

Shadow gave him a bland look and turned to pull Sonic back through the water they’d come through. “You really know nothing about swimming, do you?”

“I told you! Those kids were mean…”

Shadow shook his head, ignoring the small smile that crept over his lips. “Tell you what. If you can catch me, you can kiss me.”

That caught Sonic’s attention. He looked up at Shadow. Shadow licked his lips and leaned forward, flirting with the distance between their mouths. Sonic closed his eyes and craned his neck as far forward as he could. Shadow drew back, maintaining the distance perfectly.

“You’ll need to kick those legs to catch me.”

Sonic growled at him and extended his legs back into the water behind him. He kicked so hard that he bowled Shadow over and they both went down into the surf.

Shadow found his feet and pulled Sonic up above the surf as fast as he could. The blue hedgehog spluttered and coughed, gripping Shadow’s shoulders hard as if to make sure he wouldn’t go under again—but otherwise he seemed fine. Shadow supported them both until Sonic’s coughing fit had passed. He must have gotten more water in his lungs that Shadow had realized.

Once Sonic was breathing easy again, Shadow started laughing and hid his face against Sonic’s shoulder. “You could be your own personal speed boat, running people over in the water like that,” he said between spurts of laughter. “You just need to get a feel for it.”

“Well, what I _feel_ about it is that water is dangerous and horrible and bad.”

“Come on, it’s not all bad.”

“No? I just almost _died_ and you say it’s not all bad? What’s one good thing that’s happened in the water toda—mmph!”

Shadow cut Sonic off with a kiss. He had promised Sonic that he could kiss him if he caught him. Then he took a step back, making Sonic chase him to keep the kiss going. Sonic took a breath and kicked his legs to catch Shadow again. Shadow led Sonic in circles, never giving the other hedgehog the space to think about what they were doing before they kissed again. When Sonic moved too fast and pushed them over, Shadow kept Sonic’s face against his with both hands, kissing air into Sonic’s mouth and spiraling them gently back to the surface. Sonic gasped a little after the first time, but once he understood that it was safe, he let the water wash over him smoothly, only moving his legs a little to help push them through the water.

Once Shadow was satisfied with Sonic’s control of his kicks and doubly sure that being uncomfortable in the water was the furthest thing from Sonic’s mind again, Shadow took a breath, dropped into the water and out of Sonic’s arms, and pushed back to the surface just outside of Sonic’s reach. He gave Sonic a smug look, the same kind he used to give the blue hedgehog when he had the upper hand in a fight.

Sonic growled again and dug into the water with his arms, kicking his feet at the same time.

Shadow lowered his eyelids challenging and leaned back into the water, stroking away from Sonic lazily. Sonic struggled to keep up, but his awkward strokes became more efficient as he chased after the other hedgehog. Sonic got faster. Shadow got more creative in avoiding him, dropping under the water just as Sonic caught up and stroking Sonic’s belly as he slipped back behind him. Sonic was panting after that. Shadow felt it too; in his cheeks, in his chest. It was like a game. Tag, where winning was winning and losing was also winning.

“What’s wrong, Sonic?” he goaded, treading water just out of reach. “Too tired to catch me after all?”

Sonic’s expression changed, steel seeping into the set of his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then disappeared under the water.

Shadow hadn’t been expecting that.

His eyes darted around, looking or Sonic, but the blue of the other hedgehog’s fur blended in with the tropical water perfectly. Shadow was just about to dip under the water to look around when a hand on his ankle pulled him under. Sonic dragged him down to his level, and then the tang of salt water lanced over Shadow’s tongue as Sonic kissed him again. Shadow wrapped his arms around the other hedgehog, giving him his prize. He hadn’t expected kissing to be such an effective teaching tool, but he was hardly going to deny Sonic when it had gotten him to dive underwater of his own accord.

He felt a jolt as Sonic pushed off the bottom of the ocean and brought them back to the surface. Sonic panted against Shadow once they were back above the waves, and Shadow felt Sonic’s weight as he treaded water for them. Shadow supposed the new type of exertion and the power of Sonic’s emotions must have tired him out.

“That’s enough for your first lesson,” he relented, towing them back to the shallows.

“Gee.” Sonic cut himself off to pant a little more. He was breathing harder than Shadow. Despite how well he’d taken to it, this must have really drained him. “Thanks.”

The edge of Shadow’s mouth tipped up. “Don’t complain. You got plenty of kisses. And… you did a good job.”

Sonic gave Shadow a look that was hard for Shadow to pin down. It was so… open. Like he hadn’t expected praise for this.

Shadow looked away with a glower. “Don’t let it go to your head, though. I don’t want to fish you out of the ocean because you got cocky.”

Sonic laughed gently and looked away, a soft blush tinging his cheeks. “Nah, don’t worry. I’m not going in without you anytime soon.”

“Good.” Shadow dumped Sonic in the shallows where the waves would only come up a few inches. He planted his hands in the sand on either side of Sonic and kissed him again. Sonic made a soft sound and pulled Shadow closer. Shadow deepened the kiss, pressing his tongue into Sonic’s mouth and tasting salt. Shadow broke away just as suddenly as he’d kissed Sonic and turned back towards the sea. “There’s your reward. Now stay there while I get that fish for dinner.”

Sonic gave him a goofy love-struck smile and a salute. “Yes, sir.”

Shadow tore his eyes away and dove into the cold water.

What was this idiot doing to him?

* * *

Shadow stalked back out of the ocean carrying a fish big enough to feed them for the night. Sonic made a face as it wriggled in Shadow’s hand a little. It was still stunned from the bite he’d given it to when he’d caught it, but it would soon stop.

Still, Sonic’s distaste was both annoying and touching.

Shadow turned so the fish was hidden mostly by his body and shook the water out of his quills. “I’m going to store this and then rinse the salt water from my fur. You should too, especially since you’re not used to it.”

Sonic’s fur was already starting to dry in the sun from the look of it, so no water came off him when the hedgehog shook his head. He looked recovered from the daze that swimming for the first time had left him in. “Nah, I’m gonna get a run in first.” He stood and dropped into a crouch, stretching one leg and then the other. “You go ahead. I’ll blitz through after you’re done and then meet you in the kitchen to help prep dinner.”

Shadow gave Sonic a funny look. “You don’t need to help me.”

“Well, sure… But I want to.” Sonic winked, zoomed up to Shadow, kissed him on the cheek, and then zoomed off again. “Have a nice shower!” Shadow heard as Sonic sped away along the circumference of the bubble.

Shadow rubbed his cheek gruffly where Sonic had kissed him and teleported to the kitchen. He was feeling… something. He put the now-still fish in the refrigerator and then made for the shower. He tried to pin down what his feelings were doing while he stood under the warm spray.

Rose’s words from that morning came back to him while he thought.

_Joy is a very vulnerable emotion._

Was he happy? He was… comfortable. That much he was certain of. He’d been happy that morning. It had been a perfect cup of tea…

_Try and make him feel safe._

Tch. Shadow turned off the water and toweled himself off. There was no such thing as safe for someone like him. There was just the next mission, the next threat, the next horrible loss.

Shadow sighed and put his hand to the wrinkle in his forehead. Today with Sonic, he’d forgotten about the crushing inevitability of his lot in life as an immortal protector of the planet. It felt even heavier as it crashed back down on him now.

“Keep frowning like that and you’ll get worry lines.” Sonic’s voice came from behind him. Shadow spun and saw the blue hedgehog, leaning nonchalantly against the outer wall of the shower, looking sweaty. He seemed a little winded, but otherwise looked as though his run had done little to take down his boundless amount of energy. Sonic gave Shadow a tiny two-fingered salute of greeting. “Told ya I’d be here when you were done.” He took a step towards Shadow, but Shadow mirrored him and backed away.

“Don’t you come near me with all that sweat and salt on you,” Shadow said.

Sonic spread his arms and looked down at himself. His fur was dried in funny directions, sticking up from the salt and the fast air-drying it had just gone through. Sonic gave Shadow a sheepish look, sped into the shower, and then sped back out again so fast that Shadow wasn’t clear on how he’d actually had time to wash. The water had turned on and off, though. He’d heard it. Plus, Sonic definitely _looked_ clean.

Sonic grinned and rubbed water from his quills with a towel. “That’s better.” He hung the towel up to dry and approached Shadow again. This time Shadow let him. Sonic took Shadow’s hands in his and gave Shadow a soft, inquisitive smile. “Wanna go make dinner?”

The normalcy of the question shattered Shadow’s other thoughts. It was so… mundane. And yet, joyful.

He couldn’t for the life of him understand why the thought of making dinner with this disaster of a hedgehog would make him feel happy, but it did.

The weight of the world lifted a little. Not much, but enough for him to snap himself back to the moment.

Shadow nodded gently.

Sonic moved his thumbs over Shadow’s. “You sure? We can just get something from the fridge if you don’t feel like cooking anymore.”

“Tch, and waste the ingredients we gathered?” Shadow gave Sonic a reproachful look. “Come with me and let me show you how miserable at cooking you are.”

Sonic grinned and zoomed into the kitchen.

Dinner was steamed palm hearts and fish. Sonic actually managed to help, despite his squeamishness over Shadow’s gutting of their fish. With a little direction, he peeled the palm hearts adequately, though Shadow still didn’t trust him to not cut off his own fingers with a knife if allowed to cut at anything other than deliberate half-speed. Preparation of the meal and the meal itself were both pleasant.

Sonic babbled about swimming while Shadow ate and listened. It was a lot to take in. How scared he’d been. How he’d forgotten about how scared he was with Shadow _teasing_ him like that. How it was really hard to be scared and horny and swimming all at the same time. And how Sonic couldn’t believe Shadow could focus well enough while swimming to just catch a fish with his bare hands.

The conversation kept Shadow from dwelling too much on his own thoughts. And he had to admit—dinner was better with company again.

After, Sonic took their dishes to the sink. “I’ll wash up.”

Shadow rose from his seat at the counter. “I could dry for you,” he offered softly.

Sonic shot Shadow a glance, then looked away quickly. Something about the way he did it made him look nervous. Worried. Concerned. “Nah,” he said, his tone as sunny as ever. “You cooked. I’ll take care of it.”

“You helped.”

Sonic laughed and lathered the dish brush they had. “I peeled some veggies, Shadz. You caught a fish with your bare hands!” He still sounded excited about it. He lifted his sud-covered brush and waved Shadow away. “Go meditate or star gaze or whatever it is you do after dinner in the woods.”

Shadow hesitated. What he usually did was break into the library, the mayor’s office, the observatory… Any place that could tell him if a threat was rising that needed dealing with.

But he couldn’t do that right now.

He sighed and took a spare blanket from the back of the couch, one that looked like it wouldn’t suffer too much if he laid it in the sand. “I’ll be outside, then.”

“I’ll come join you when I’m done.”

The reassurance tucked itself up under Shadow’s ribs like a bright star of its own. He brushed through the door into the cool night air with the hint of a smile on his lips. It was nice knowing he wouldn’t be alone for long.

His head still felt dizzy, though. It had been a long day of emotional whiplash.

He spread the blanket on the sand and fell down on top of it, belly up, eyes on the sky. The first few stars were just starting to peek out as the blues and purples of sunset gave way to the deep indigo of night. The moon had yet to rise. Shadow picked out the path of the Ark’s orbit, and gazed steadily at the line of sky where it might appear.

Maria.

He thought about what Sonic had said that morning, about how she would have wanted him to be happy…

Sonic wasn’t wrong. Maria had loved him. Of course she would have wanted him to be happy. But Shadow also knew that what Maria wished for hadn’t been realized. He was still here, but she wasn’t. The way it should have been wasn’t the way it was. And he would have been happy saving the world for her, the way she seen it through her eyes instead of the best he could do without her.

The world Maria had envisioned had always been beautiful.

It was hard to be happy about saving it over and over and over when it felt like no one else cared. The environment. The wars. The hunger. Sonic and his friends had carved out this little strip of paradise, but what of the others who shared their planet? The pollution thrown into the air, land, and water? The oil spilled into the sea?

Some things that took more than just beating up robots to cure.

“What would you have me do?” Shadow asked the empty sky, wishing the Ark would show itself. “If you were here… What would you say?”

Silence and starlight were his only answers.

Shadow closed his eyes and tried not to cry for the second time in one day.

He felt so lost without her.

The sound of the door had his eyes open again. He leaned his head back and saw Sonic descending the stairs, two mugs in hand.

“That tea of Amy’s came through. So did some new ingredients if you wanna take a look at ‘em before bed.” Sonic plopped down next to Shadow on the blanket and handed him one of the mugs. He shifted a little as Shadow took it, taking a sip from his own mug and looking up at the stars. “Man, they sure are beautiful tonight, huh?”

Shadow sipped his tea and basked in the way Sonic looked at the stars. The fear and the loneliness didn’t feel quite so close with Sonic nearby and a warm mug in his hands. “Mhmm.”

Sonic took another sip from his mug and then caught Shadow looking at him. He colored a little and shifted a little closer. “So, uh… How’s the tea?”

“Aren’t you drinking it too?”

“Ha! No, this is hot chocolate. Sticks took pity on me and raided some of her apocalypse stash.” Sonic stuck out his pinky and sipped noisily from his cup with his nose in the air like some sort of hot chocolate snob. Shadow smirked and hid his amusement behind his own mug.

“It’s good,” he said, taking another sip. “Floral. Soothing. Not overly sweet.”

Sonic made a face. “Don’t go drinking any of my hot chocolate then. It won’t be at all satisfying.”

Shadow smirked again. “Well… Maybe it if were dark chocolate.”

“Don’t ever threaten me like that again.”

Shadow laughed and turned on his side, his head falling forward towards Sonic. Sonic chuckled with him, his face falling in towards Shadow too. Sonic’s eyes were soft when they’d gotten the laughter out of their system. Shadow was sure his were too. He felt warm and… safe.

Shadow sighed and pulled away. He fell onto his back, careful not spill his tea, and looked back up at the stars, searching for the Ark again.

Sonic took another sip of his cocoa, then placed his mug aside and lay down to snuggle up against Shadow’s side. “Whatcha lookin’ for up there, big guy?”

“We’re the same height.”

“It’s a turn of phrase. Indulge me. ‘S part of my character voice.”

Shadow shook his head, but curled his arm gently along Sonic’s back. “…There’s an old space station that orbits the earth. A research facility from before you were born that set out to find ways to make the world a better place.” Shadow paused, searching for the right words, deciding how much to tell him. “I’m from there.”

“Whoa. Shadz, you never told me you were a scientist.”

Shadow grimaced and ran his free hand through his quills. “No, I’m… I was one of the research subjects.”

Sonic shut his mouth, like he was trying to actually think about what he was saying before it came speeding out of his mouth for once. “Like they… did experiments on you?”

Shadow shook his head. “I was the experiment.”

Sonic bit his lip. “Is that better or worse?”

Shadow smiled sadly. “It’s better.”

“Shadz, I’m gettin’ a lot of mixed signals here.”

Shadow glanced at Sonic. It was like the blue hedgehog didn’t know whether to bolt or fight—to give Shadow space or insist.

Shadow tightened his hold around Sonic.

“Remember the woman I told you about this morning?”

Sonic nodded. “You said her name was Maria?”

Shadow nodded. “She was one of the researchers on that station.” He searched the sky again, hoping the Ark would come around on its orbit soon. “The sight of the station passing overhead is all I have left of her.”

Sonic shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a good thing, or something else you’re using to torture yourself with.”

Shadow smirked sadly. “Good question.” He kept his eyes on the sky. “Maybe a little of both.”

Sonic made an irritated sound.

Shadow brushed his thumb back and forth on Sonic’s back soothingly. “More of the former than the later. It makes me sad. I miss her. But seeing it… It helps me remember the good times too. And that grounds me. Reminds me what I’m fighting for.”

“Is anyone still up there?”

“No.” Shadow thought back to the explosive way his time on the Ark ended. “The research center was decommissioned rather violently when different countries learned about me and the other experiments. We were never meant to be weapons, but that didn’t keep people from seeing us that way.”

Sonic bit his lip and sat up. Shadow’s hand fell away as Sonic moved. Shadow let it catch on Sonic’s knee, not willing to let the reassuring warmth of the other hedgehog go just yet. Sonic picked his mug back up and passed it from hand to hand, looking off to the side with a wrinkle in his forehead. “I… _want_ to ask what happened, but I don’t want to push you.” Sonic raised his mug to his lips quickly, as if damming his mouth with it to keep anything else from coming out until Shadow answered.

Shadow raised himself onto his elbows and took a sip of his tea too, considering. He’d never told anyone the full story. He didn’t know how it would feel to do so. The idea of telling Sonic didn’t trouble him. But going over it for someone else…

Shadow finished his tea and put the empty mug down in the sand. “I’ll tell you on two conditions.”

Sonic choked on his hot chocolate. He spluttered, wiped his mouth, and then leaned in, looking eager. Only Sonic could manage to be out of breath from choking in excitement. “Just name ‘em, buddy.”

Shadow chuckled and put his hand to Sonic’s cheek. “Never mind, three—the first of which being that you finish your hot chocolate so you can’t choke on it again during the story.”

Sonic knocked his head back and finished the beverage with three quick gulps. “Okay, first stipulation met. Hit me with the other two.”

“Second, you can’t interrupt.” Shadow withdrew his hand and looked away. “And third, you can’t pity me.”

Sonic was quiet for a moment. “I think I promise you that. Like… I’m not gonna think less of you. But I think I’m still gonna feel for you, dude. Whatever this was, it sounds like it was really hard. And, I don’t think I can stop myself from feeling something about that. But you’re plenty strong. I know that.”

Shadow shifted, keeping his eyes off Sonic’s and up on the stars. He didn’t want the other hedgehog to see how much that last statement had meant to him. “That’ll do.” He patted the blanket next to him, encouraging Sonic to lay back down. “Stop looming over me and I’ll start.”

Sonic lay back down. He fitted his body against Shadow’s, draping an arm over Shadow’s stomach, hooking the higher of his legs over Shadow’s calf. It made Shadow feel anchored, grounded. He nuzzled Sonic’s cheek gently and then sucked in a breath to tell his tale.

“Fifty-three years ago, the Ark was completed and its crew sent to it. The leader of the small group of scientists was a woman named Maria Robotnik. She was a young woman who had accomplished much in twenty-seven years of life. Her vision for the future and her brilliant mind spoke for themselves—as did her inventions. She expounded on the modern solar panel to make them smaller and more efficient. She created windmills that could sit in trees and generate power for the modern consumer. She created genetically enhanced fast growing crops for people in need, and made tiny contraptions that purified water in seconds. She even had her finger in ethical lab-grown meat and cellular reconstruction. She wasn’t like the other eggheads that cared only for research and the power they might wield—she was a scientist who wanted to make a better world.”

“She sounds really kind,” Sonic murmured.

Shadow squeezed Sonic. “No interrupting.”

Sonic lifted his arm and zipped his fingers over his mouth, batting his eyelashes innocently at Shadow.

Shadow smirked and hummed a laugh, then returned his eyes to the sky and continued. “She _was_ very kind. And she wanted to make sure her vision for a new world would be carried forward by generations to come. That’s why she turned her attention to biochemistry.” Shadow scratched his forehead and concentrated. “I’m still kind of fuzzy on the details of why, but there was something to do with cells that had been found in space that Maria was working with that had some sort of capability she wanted to protect. Those cells, well…” Shadow gestured down his body. “Half a year and some splicing later, they became me.”

“But you said ‘we’ earlier,” Sonic said.

Shadow gave him a look. Sonic covered his hand with his mouth. “Fzorry,” he said through his glove.

Shadow rolled his eyes fondly. “Yes, there were other experiments. I was the final one. But Maria cared for all of us. Even though other scientists on the Ark thought the prototypes should be destroyed, Maria protected them, saying even prototypes could still help save the world, that they still had something to teach us. She took care of all of us, and gave us names.”

“But she spent the most time with you?”

Shadow didn’t even bother reprimanding Sonic this time; there was clearly no point, and his interruptions were less disruptive than Shadow had thought they might be. “No. But she was the heart of our family. We wouldn’t have been who we were without her.” He shut his eyes, remembering warm moments. Then he shook them away and looked at the stars. “One day, Maria came flying into my quarters. Her hair was mussed, and her breathing labored. Her heart-rate was elevated and her pupils dilated. I’d never seen her with so much adrenaline pumping through her veins before.”

Shadow paused, expecting Sonic to interrupt again, but the blue hedgehog was silent.

Shadow continued. “She told me the Ark had been breached by people who thought my siblings and I were too powerful to leave unchecked. Three different forces from three different countries were coming for us—to take us and use us for themselves, or to destroy us if they couldn’t take us. Maria said she had already given Lizzie and Shelly their assignments, and that she had come to give me mine. I had to go with her, without a moment’s hesitation.” Shadow paused and swallowed, a lump welling up in his throat as he thought of what came next. “But she tricked me. She took me to her lab where she trapped me in a capsule. I couldn’t get out. I banged on the glass calling her name. She apologized for tricking me. She said she knew I wouldn’t cooperate if she told me the truth.”

Sonic shifted against Shadow, curling around him like he was trying to bring him even closer. “What was the truth?” he murmured.

“She wasn’t sure Shelly and Lizzie could keep the hostile forces out. And, no matter what, she couldn’t let them get me.” Shadow closed his eyes. “She pleaded with me to protect the earth, and keep it safe, so everyone could live their dreams.” He took a shuddering breath in and bit his lip, holding the breath like a seal against further tears. “Then she threw me down to the planet, where I would be safe.” Shadow turned in, pressing his face into Sonic’s fur. “But not before a soldier breached the door and shot her.” His fingers tightened over Sonic’s back. “Flecks of her blood hit my capsule before it cleared the room.” He choked on his breath. “I fell away, to the planet she loved so much. But there was nothing I could do to save _her_.”

Sonic put his arms around Shadow’s neck and pulled him into a hug. “It’s not your fault, buddy.”

Shadow shuddered, trying not to sob.

Sonic stroked Shadow’s quills gently. “You can let it out. I’m not gonna pity you for crying about it.”

Shadow shook gently with quiet sobs as tears leaked from his eyes into Sonic’s fur. Sonic only nestled closer, his hot breath warm in the fur of Shadow’s chest. “I got you,” Sonic said. “You’re okay, I got you.”

Shadow didn’t know how such a simple reassurance could be so powerful, but the weight of his guilt and his pain felt lighter and lighter each time Sonic repeated those words and smoothed Shadow’s quills.

The tears eventually turned to infrequent hiccups as Shadow’s body pulled in new breath. Sonic chuckled and pulled back a little. “Never thought ‘the ultimate lifeform’ would still get hiccups like the rest of us.”

Shadow smiled sadly and wiped his face. “…Maria thought they were cute too.”

Sonic smiled the same melancholy smile as Shadow and his gaze fell to the ground. “Man, she sounds like a cool lady, Shadz. I’m… really sorry she’s gone.” Sonic raised his eyes and laced his fingers with Shadow’s. “But I’m really glad she saved you.”

Shadow paused. “I never thought of it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like she saved me. Not that I failed her.”

“Fifty years of keeping your promise hardly seems like failing,” Sonic murmured. “By the way, you’re looking great for fifty, if I may say.”

Shadow scoffed and pushed Sonic back half-heartedly. “I’m immortal, you idiot. Would be pretty stupid to program that into my DNA and have me go on aging after I reached my prime.”

“But like… _did_ you reach your prime?” Sonic hooded his eyes and gave Shadow a goofy look. “Or did you just pop out of some sort of bio-capsule looking this good?”

Shadow shook his head, trying to orient himself. His head was spinning with the crying and the whiplash of going from crying to laughing so fast. Instead of thinking about it, he reached up and laced his fingers through the quills at the base of Sonic’s head. “That poor attempt at a compliment reminds me that I have some making up to do for you for throwing you into the ocean earlier…”

Sonic’s grin widened and he leaned in, his eyes dipping down to Shadow’s lips. “I think you like my poor attempts at compliments.”

“What I like is when your mouth is too busy for you to be running it.”

Sonic sighed and went a little limp in Shadow’s hands. “It’s really unfair when you say things like that.” He skimmed his cheek against Shadow’s and Shadow basked in the warmth of another body against his. It was grounding—like an anchor in stormy seas.

Shadow took Sonic by the chin, turned his head back, and kissed him. Sonic moaned gently into the kiss and then melted further against Shadow. The proximity made Shadow feel safe. Like no matter what happened, Sonic wouldn’t let go.

Shadow braced himself against the earth and then rolled, flipping Sonic onto his back without breaking their kiss.

Sonic broke it with a gasp, but the way his body opened up under Shadow’s like a plea to keep going was enough for the black hedgehog to know that it was only excitement that had the blue hedgehog gasping.

Shadow traced Sonic’s sides with his hands, and then moved down.

Sonic’s hand leapt into Shadow’s quills and stopped him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Shadow blinked. “To wrap my mouth around your cock, obviously.”

Sonic shivered, but didn’t relinquish his hold. “What, the ultimate life form can’t figure out a way to get me off and kiss me at the same time?”

Shadow’s eyebrows rose, and he couldn’t stop his lips from curling into the ghost of a smile. “Such a mouth you have you,” he said as he levered himself back over Sonic’s face. He lowered his eyelids to half-mast and leaned in to trace his lips over the other hedgehog’s. “Someone should really shut you up.”

“Maybe you should do it yourself,” Sonic whispered back, tipping his chin up challengingly. “Unless you’re some kind of faker or something.”

Shadow kissed Sonic with all of the gravity of crashing planets. The response was instantaneous. Sonic wrapped himself around Shadow like the petals of a morning glory closing around the flower’s center for the night.

It made Shadow feel warm and safe and full.

Gently, he rubbed the sheath of his genitals against Sonic’s. Something he’d learned while delving into the library’s more adult sections was that erections weren’t necessary for orgasm. All the nerves were still there, just below the surface.

And Sonic felt it.

He gasped and moaned as Shadow moved. Shadow nuzzled at Sonic’s neck, dropping a few quick kisses to the fur there before returning to Sonic’s mouth and sliding his tongue inside.

Sonic bucked his hips against Shadow, and the black hedgehog’s breath hitched, sliding out of his clenched teeth with a delectable hiss.

Everything about it felt slow and languid. This was different from the other times—where time and speed and posturing had played a part in their sex. It wasn’t about getting to the goal. No… This time, Shadow wanted the encounter to last as long as possible.

If it could keep making him feel safe, confined in Sonic’s arms, he wanted to kiss the other hedgehog until the end of time.

Sonic exhaled sharply against Shadow’s lips. He twitched under Shadow, the tip his erection sliding through the folds of his sheath and teasing the entrance of Shadow’s. Shadow groaned and bit Sonic gently. His body was riddled with sensation. Every brush against the other’s blue fur was like stars shooting across the night of his own. Shadow rocked his hips heavily, coaxing his erection out to slip fluidly against Sonic’s.

Sonic arched up against Shadow with a gasp as Shadow fought to keep himself from going completely limp and crushing the delicious friction between them.

Fury, desire, gratitude, and fear all roiled in Shadow. How dare Sonic make him feel like this? How could he get more? Thank every star in the sky they’d been locked up together. How would he go on when it was over?

All those feelings came to a head as Sonic’s hips ground against him and Sonic pulled Shadow to him roughly by the quills. “Sonic…” Shadow grit out. It was a warning and a plea.

“Shadz,” Sonic answered. The nickname gusted out of his mouth with a heavy breath. He placed his forehead against Shadow’s. Shadow could feel the wrinkle between Sonic’s eyebrows as the other hedgehog panted into his mouth. Shadow’s lips sparked as Sonic tipped his lips up to his again and whispered, “Don’t stop.”

Shadow closed his eyes and made a choice. Then he bore down on Sonic, trapping him against the ground and taking control of their rhythm. Shadow’s tongue reverberated with the cry he swallowed from Sonic’s mouth. Sonic’s ankles crossed behind Shadow’s back as Shadow ground against Sonic. The timbre of the encounter had changed again. Before it had been about comfort, grounding himself with Sonic’s skin and taste. But now Shadow wanted Sonic to lose himself in the ecstasy of Shadow’s body.

Maybe this was why others had sex—not the hormonal drive, but to gift something to someone…

Sonic tensed and held Shadow’s face against his. He never relinquished the kiss, even as his body shook in orgasm. The heat, the sound, the feel of it all… Shadow had never known anything more erotic. He deepened their kiss and came himself, a soft sound breaking in his throat and falling over Sonic’s tongue.

Sonic held him after, stroking his quills. Shadow focused on breathing, his face nestled comfortably in the crook of Sonic’s neck, and tried not to think about what a mess they’d made of their fur. His energy was spent. His mind could hardly fathom more than this moment—and this person he’d somehow accidentally let into his life.

“Throw me in the ocean again tomorrow if that’s how you’re going to make it up to me,” Sonic murmured into Shadow’s ear.

Shadow grunted. “It’s hardly something I should make up for if you want me to do it.”

“Shhhhh.” Sonic chuckled. “Don’t think too hard about it.”

Shadow rolled his eyes behind his closed lids and nuzzled closer.

He tensed as Sonic jumped under him.

“What is it now?” Shadow grumbled.

“Uh, Shadz…” Sonic lifted one of his arms and pointed at the sky. “Something’s moving really fast up there.”

Shadow cracked an eye and turned his head to see. A bright spot moved quickly through the star-speckled sky, steady and true in its orbit.

“Is that the Ark?” Sonic whispered.

Shadow smiled and a tear of relief welled up in his eye as he watched the Ark pass over them and then disappear in the earth’s shadow. “Yes. That was it.” He turned his face back to Sonic’s warm fur. “And I would have missed it again if you hadn’t said something.” He nuzzled his nose against Sonic gently. “…Thank you.”

Sonic scoffed. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with the _real_ Shadow the hedgehog?”

Shadow pressed a kiss to Sonic’s throat and traced his hand up over Sonic’s ribs. “This is who I am,” he murmured as Sonic melted under his touch. “All of me. Get used to it.”

Sonic paused, like he was teetering on the edge of a precipice and didn’t know which way to fall. Then he committed, hugging Shadow again tightly. “So long as you don’t back track on that once we get out of here.”

Shadow smirked and said nothing, basking in the warmth of Sonic’s arms.

After a moment, Sonic replied. “Anyway, you’re welcome.”

Shadow hummed and his smile spread just a touch further across his face.

“…Do you wish you could go back?”

Shadow’s smile fell away as thoughts of the home he’d lost came crashing back.

He pushed himself up and off of Sonic, looking up at the sky above them. His feelings were a jumble of conflicting threads. Of course he wanted to go back. But the place he wanted to return to didn’t exist anymore. It was just a shell of itself. A gleaming husk hanging in the sky.

“I think it’s more of a symbol now than a place I want to go back to,” Shadow said. “It reminds me of Maria. Of my sisters. Of everything Maria hoped and wished for us and for the world.”

“Your light in the darkness?” Sonic prompted.

Shadow nodded.

“I get that.” Sonic reached out and took Shadow’s hand. “My friends are that for me.”

Shadow hummed a laugh and gave Sonic a teasing look. “You’ve always been a bleeding heart, haven’t you?”

Sonic laughed and squeezed his hand. “That’s rich, coming from you, O guardian of the planet.”

Shadow smiled gently and looked pensively back to the sky. “No, I don’t think I’d want to go back. But, if I could, I wish I could talk with Maria one last time. About anything. Just to hear her voice again. The way she strung words together and the worth she saw in everything. I think I miss those conversations more than anything else.” He squeezed Sonic’s hand again and dipped his head to the side, biting his lip to hold back more tears. He’d already cried more that night that he had in fifty years.

Sonic’s thumb swept over Shadow’s, but he didn’t press further.

“Wanna get cleaned up before bed,” he murmured gently.

Shadow nodded and pressed himself up into a sitting position. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” He stood and offered Sonic a hand, but Sonic shook his head, a gentle expression on his face.

“Nah, you go ahead. I’ll pick up out here and catch up with you.”

Shadow blinked and lowered his hand, more gratitude welling up in his chest. Sonic was giving him a moment of privacy to put himself back together.

“Thank you,” he said again.

Sonic wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, giving Shadow an incredulous look. “Stop thanking me so much, you’re freaking me out.”

Shadow laughed once and shook his head. “Have it your way,” he said, shrugging as he walked away. “I’ll be in the shower.”

The steam and warm water were enough to settle Shadow’s post-coital mind again. It was late. He’d had a long day. And his emotions were spent. Everything could wait until morning—and what nightmares might come for him in the night were no match for the steady warmth of Sonic’s arms.

Shadow laughed at himself as he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

Three days in quarantine and he was turning into a gooey romantic.

Maria would have liked that.

Shadow went back into the house, but Sonic wasn’t there. Confused, Shadow poked his head back out the front door. Sonic was still there, on the blanket. The dim glow of his hollow screen was visible in the dark. The murmur of voices back and forth reached Shadow’s ears, and then the screen shut off and there was silence. Sonic looked up from the blanket and grinned at Shadow. “Feeling better?”

Shadow turned his head to the side. “Why are you still out here? And on the phone so late?”

Sonic shrugged. “Evening check in. Had some stuff to go over with Tails real quick. Turns out those rocks we fell back through the portal with sure are something—or at least Eggman’s getting real giddy about ‘em. Anyway—” Sonic sped up off the blanket in a blur, did a few quick circles around the area, and then blipped back into existence with the clean blanket rolled up and propped jauntily on his shoulder. “Lemme just blitz through the shower for the second time today and then we can be off to dreamland.”

Shadow narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I like the idea of Eggman giddy.”

Sonic laughed, his eyes closing with the force of it. Shadow felt himself soften a little at the sight. Something bubbly and warm bloomed in his stomach and floated up through his chest.

Sonic zoomed over to Shadow and kissed him. “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, but I promise it’s nothing to worry about.” He winked and then zoomed away again.

Once they were both clean and in bed, Shadow wrapped himself up in Sonic like a security blanket. He wasn’t sure what he’d found for himself here. It couldn’t replace what he’d lost. But it definitely made carrying everything he’d been through easier.

He thought a few more words of thanks as he slipped into sleep, safe and warm in Sonic’s arms.


	4. Day 4-7: Uninhibited

The next few days passed more easily than the first three had. Shadow woke up before Sonic and found the ingredients Sonic had bartered for at the ready. Sonic got better at swimming, and reaped rewards just as sweet as the first time. Shadow introduced Sonic to the concept of sitting still long enough to listen to Shadow read to him, and Sonic in turn baptized Shadow in video games—though they had to stop when Shadow lost for the twelfth time in Tomatopotamus 2 and tried to hurl Sonic’s tiny television out the window and into the sea. They sparred, and cooked, and stargazed. They swam and raced and tried to impress each other without letting on that they were trying to impress each other. And in between those moments they let their bodies linger against each other and shot each other looks and stole kisses.

The days were easy, and the company was soothing. Shadow could hardly believe how quickly the time seemed to go in comparison to their first few days together.

On the morning of the seventh day, Shadow beat Sonic out of bed for the fourth day in a row. He navigated his way out of Sonic’s limbs and tucked the other hedgehog back in. For a moment, he hesitated with his hand on the blanket he’d pulled over Sonic. This all felt very practiced and domestic now. In a way, that scared him. He wasn’t really used to having things he was scared of losing anymore. And the last time he had, well…

He smoothed Sonic’s quills and kissed the hedgehog gently on the forehead before heading for the kitchen.

He wouldn’t dwell too long on those thoughts. Maria would want him to be happy, not agonize on how his happiness could make him miserable again.

He smirked and huffed out a laugh as he made tea.

Sonic sure had gotten under his skin. The little voice that said Maria would want him to be happy, that he shouldn’t destroy his present happiness because of the fear of future pain… It was like Sonic was in his head, actively challenging his negative thoughts now.

Shadow closed his eyes and sipped his tea, feeling warm from head to toe.

This warm, safe feeling…

This is what he remembered home feeling like.

He made himself comfortable at the breakfast bar with his tea and a book to wait for Sonic to wake up. He glanced up when Sonic’s communicator went off.

Huh. He supposed. The last time he’d noticed it was when Sonic had made that call the night they’d seen the Ark together for the first time. Had it really been three days since his friends had contacted him?

What’s more, Sonic continued to sleep.

That was also strange.

Had he been sleeping more these past few days?

Shadow ran back over the time, trying to pin-point patterns. Sonic had been progressively sleeping more, he supposed. And their activities were somewhat less strenuous in the last day or so, but that could easily be chalked up to variety.

Sonic groaned and snuggled deeper under the blanket as his communicator went off again three times in rapid succession.

Now that wasn’t like him at all.

Shadow stood up from his seat and went back to the bed. He took Sonic by the shoulder and shook him gently. “Sonic.”

Sonic took a deep breath and stretched, arching into Shadow’s touch. “Five more minutes, Shadz.”

“You’re communicator’s gone off four times.”

Sonic’s eyes snapped open. “Ohmigosh, really?”

Sonic’s shoulder was torn out of Shadow’s hand as the blue hedgehog spun in bed and flipped his communicator’s holoscreen up. His eyes tore over the messages, and then he beamed. “Shadz, I’ve got such a good surprise for you.”

Shadow blinked, not seeing how any of these messages could add up to a surprise for him. “What is it?”

Sonic laughed and flashed the screen down. “Like I’d just tell you.” He zipped out of bed and over to the refrigerator where he swigged orange juice straight from the carton, and then over to the television he’d managed to save from Shadow’s video game rampage the other day. “If you wanna make us some breakfast, I’ll set it up so I can show you, though.”

Shadow rolled his eyes, but made his way back to the kitchen. “This had better be good,” he called back as he cracked some eggs into a skillet.

Sonic laughed conspiratorially under his breath and said almost low enough that Shadow didn’t hear him, “Oh, don’t worry, it will be.”

Shadow brought their eggs out to the couch when they were finished, a nice slice of toast and a sausage on each plate alongside the veggie and cheese omelets. “Alright,” he said, setting their food down on the little table. “I have provided breakfast. Now get this charade over with.”

“Charade,” Sonic parroted. “Please.” He threw himself down on the couch next to Shadow and pressed a button on his communicator. “You’re gonna be speechless when you see what I’ve got for you.”

Shadow rolled his eyes again and took a bite of his breakfast as the television screen came to life. He nearly spat it back out when Maria flashed onto the screen. He choked and started coughing.

Sonic thumped him on the back and held him as Shadow dislodged the food and managed to swallow.

“You okay, Shadz?” Sonic asked. He made a face and glanced to the side. “Maybe showing you this while you were eating was a bad idea.”

Shadow flailed at the television. “What was she saying?!” He pointed accusingly at Sonic. “How did you get this? What is this?” He looked back at the television. “And can you make her stop and back up?”

Sonic gave Shadow an apologetic look and tapped his communicator. The image of Maria froze. “Yeah, sorry, no worries, we can play this as many times as you want, buddy. See, you said her name was Robotnik. I thought maybe Eggman could help, given what you’d told me of the Ark. He and Tails managed to get in remotely, and they found a bunch of recordings. They just managed to pull them all down, and now we’ve got access. According to Tail’s preliminary scanning, they look like they’re Maria’s research logs.”

Shadow blinked, dumbfounded. “Research logs,” he repeated.

“Yeah.” Sonic blinked back. “What, you didn’t know she kept them?”

Shadow shook his head. “I didn’t know they _survived_.”

Sonic chuckled and patted Shadow’s knee. “Come on, Shadz, you can’t have been the only thing to survive.”

Shadow felt a pang in his chest. He didn’t know how to feel. He’d thought he _was_ the only thing to survive the attack on the Ark for so long. Having these now… It was like cutting the wound open again and pressing balm into it at the same time.

Shadow twirled his finger through the air again, this time less frantically. “Can you make her start from the beginning?” he asked softly.

Sonic nodded and sat back. “You got it.” He fiddled with his communicator, and then took Shadow’s hand as the video started over.

Her voice poured into Shadow’s ears for the first time in fifty years.

“Gosh, I still have to figure out how to date these…” Maria made a face at the camera and adjusted it slightly. Her white lab coat was hung over the back of her chair, and her favorite short sleeved blue shirt was tucked into the well-loved pair of rust-colored, high-wasted corduroys she always wore cuffed at the ankle. Shadow recognized the room behind her, but not the stacks of partially unbacked boxes. It made him ache to see her, so fresh and new, with no idea of what was ahead of her. “You’d think I would have figured out how I was gonna do that before I started my first entry, but, as you’ll soon learn about me, my little science diary, I’m more of a feet first think later kind of girl.” She chewed her lip, the way she always did when she was thinking. Her gold hair was up in a ponytail instead of cordoned off with her usual blue headband. She looked like she was even perspiring a little.

“Well, this is our first day, so we’ll go by days,” Maria decided, clasping her hands. “Science Log, Day One of Science Station Ark.” Maria took a seat in an office chair next the console and bounced up and down, like she could hardly contain her joy. “I can’t believe I really get to say that, and that I’m in space!” She spun in the chair with her arms splayed out, as if showcasing everything in the room. “Can you believe this? All this! Artificial gravity, equipment, and Earth-side views; mine! Well, mine and my team’s.”

She turned back to the camera and tucked a lock of wavy hair that had spring free back into place behind her ear, and adjusted her posture sheepishly. “Maybe it’s a little premature to call it ‘Day One’ since we’re not even done setting up yet, but it’s still so exciting to finally be up here. I’ve been chasing this dream for so long…” She looked wistfully off to the side of the camera. Then her eyes sprung back to the camera. She clapped her hands. “Speaking of dreams, let’s get down to it, shall we? The first entry of any Science Log has to record the known factors before we get into our experiments.”

She reached past the camera and recovered a clipboard.

Shadow swallowed. She’d always had paper around. Said it helped her think better to jot things down. Little cues to keep things straight in that big brain of hers. Like reference numbers, or access points. Her own personal dewy decimal system.

Maria gave the pages a quick once over. “Okay, I’ll just read you off the finer points of the proposal that got me this nonsense dream opportunity, but the long and the short of it is this—” Maria tossed the clipboard back over her shoulder, landing it perfectly in one of the boxes still to be unpacked. “A couple years ago, we had a great big meteor shower. Like… _massive_ for a meteor shower, and all us space nuts got excited because some of them were big enough to get through the atmosphere and land. We were lucky, nowhere they could do any damage, but like, really interesting. Well, they mostly hit the moon, right? And so we send up a team, and they bring back some stuff, and I got to be part of the team that analyzed it.”

Maria kicked her feet up on the console desk and leaned back. Shadow recognized her dark blue combat boots—scuffed, and with mud still stuck in the soles; overkill for the easy roaming halls of the space station. It really must have been day one on the Ark. There was a lot less mud in them by the time he fell…

“That stuff we found in the samples was wild. People couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It was like it was inert, except when you brought something else into contact with it. And I don’t mean like chemical compounds.” Maria put her feet back down on the ground and leaned in towards the camera for dramatic effect. “I mean like feelings.”

Shadow furrowed his eyebrows. Why did that sound familiar? It wasn’t nostalgia. He didn’t remember Maria talking about this back on the Ark. The familiarity felt more recent than that.

Maria leaned back and started popping her fingers open across the screen to emphasis her words. “Energy. Qi. Soul. Heart.” She threw her hands up to encompass all the things she’d just said. “All of that, what have you. It doesn’t matter what you want to call it, because it’s not easy to qualify. It wasn’t a quantitative thing. We _couldn’t_ quantify it.” She held up a finger, giving the camera a serious look. “But I’ve never let silly things like not being able to understand something get in the way of my experiments.”

Shadow laughed out loud. He remembered a few instances—namely in the Ark kitchen—where that had proved completely and harmlessly true.

“Anyway, most of the team kept trying things that we’d kind of already ruled out. I kept researching the capabilities of it—and I had a breakthrough.” Maria rubbed the back of her neck and looked off camera guiltily. “I wasn’t strictly speaking _supposed_ to touch the stuff we found, but boy am I glad I did. We’d only ever been able to kind of get it to react, but when I touched it, it was like I could charge it with my thoughts and feelings. I got it to respond to me, and I was able to manipulate it.”

She held up her hand and modeled a tiny black band worn on her middle finger that sparkled as she moved it through the light in the room. “I’ve still got a little, but I had to classify it as research material to get them to let me keep it.”

She placed her hands one over the other, palms facing each other and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath in and then exhaled. The ring glowed gold and then shifted, filling the space between her palms and turning into a familiar shape; a DNA helix. It twirled between Maria’s palms as she opened her eyes and grinned like a carnival magician at the camera. “Isn’t that wild?! Stunned my colleagues too.” She manipulated the substance back around her finger and let it settle back into the sparkling black ring. “The rest of the substance is up here with us, also research material. We’ve only been able to identify that whatever it _was_ was probably a living being at one point… There’s something like DNA in there, but not like anything we’ve ever seen before—which means!!” Maria slammed her fist down on the console and then shook her fingers out in jazz hands. “Aliens,” she sang. “We’re working with _alien DNA_. Which means, if my hypothesis is correct, this is only the beginning of what this stuff can do.”

She leaned forward again, looking off to the right with a dreamy look in her eye. “Imagine how much more this substance might be capable of if it actually belonged to a host, instead of just me. Imagine if it had a heart and feelings and a will of its own.” Maria paused, like she was lost in her own thoughts.

Shadow remembered this too; Maria the dreamer. It… meant something to him that she’d always been that way.

“There’s this story my grandfather used to tell me.” Maria’s tone was quieter, more intimate. “It was about seven stones that had been lost a very long time ago. He used to stress what kind of stone they were, like it was really, really important. ‘Not diamonds, Maria! They were emeralds, it doesn’t matter that you think they wouldn’t have survived all that time and effort just because diamonds are harder!’” She shot the camera conspiratorial look as if to communicate just what a difficult genius of a child she’d been, and then went back to her story. “Anyway, they were supposed to be able to grant wishes if you had all seven of them. They could be good if your heart was kind, or evil if your heart was cruel. That sort of thing.”

She laughed and wrinkled her nose at the camera. “Not like an alien would come all the way to our little planet, steal some rocks, and then end up back here on bits of a comet later infused with those rocks. That sounds like something out of a ridiculous video game.”

She rolled her eyes, and then took on a pensive look. “But you have to admit that the similarities between this chaos goo and my grandfather’s story are pretty remarkable.” She paused for a moment, the set of her eyes turning nostalgic and dreamy again. “I know it was probably just a cautionary tale my grandfather was trying to instill in me so I’d always use the power of science with kindness in my heart, but I always used to think…” She looked back at the camera, like it was a friend sitting across from her at a coffee shop. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actually change the world with our hearts like that?”

There was a moment of silence as Maria held the eyes of her camera. Shadow felt like she was looking straight out of the past and through the screen at him. His chest swelled as he took a breath and his eyes tingled with the threat of tears. Sonic’s hand tightened around his gently.

Maria broke the moment with a sigh and leaned back in her chair. She took down her ponytail and shook out her hair. “Anyway, that’s the goal of our research on Science Station Ark—to try and see if we can give this substance a heart. We’ll be trying several different approaches, and who knows—maybe we’ll make something like the ultimate life form or something up here. Ha!” She had a nice long laugh about that.

“Holy shit, she was going to call you that from Day One,” Sonic breathed.

Shadow shook his head fondly and put a hand to his forehead. “She always did have a sense of humor.”

Maria finished her laugh and wiped a tear from her eye. “But that’s all in the future. First we gotta finish putting the station together! I’ll make another log once we have something to report. Until then!” She gave the camera a little two-fingered salute and clicked it off.

Sonic relinquished Shadow’s hand and tapped his communicator. The video paused just as Maria came into frame again, her tongue working at the edge of her mouth as she struggled with the camera’s controls. She halted, her eyes focused on something Shadow couldn’t see, her hair in her usual blue headband this time. The boxes that had been behind her were gone, and she wore what looked like workout clothes, her lab coat forgotten on her chair once again.

Shadow couldn’t look away from the still image. He wished he could warn her. Reach out and change what was going to become of her in the future.

If only his damn abilities would allow him to turn back time instead of just stop it for a few moments.

Sonic put his hand back over Shadow’s, breaking through Shadow’s reverie. “You’ve been real quiet,” Sonic murmured.

Shadow flicked his eyes away from Maria and over to the living, breathing person next to him. Seeing her ghost like this was… disorienting.

“You okay?” Sonic prompted.

Shadow nodded, ducking his eyes. “How many more are there?”

Sonic lifted and lowered a shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I dunno. Tails just said he and Eggman pulled down all that they found. You said it was like a three year project, right? If she made notes everyday—”

“She didn’t. Not video logs anyway. She…” Shadow swallowed. Why had he never considered that some of her might be left like this? He’d seen her write things down, been shooed out when she needed to record. He’d just assumed he’d lost all of her the day he fell. “She only recorded when she had a new conclusion or needed to talk something out with herself.”

“Then I really don’t know.” Sonic flicked his finger over his communicator, scrolling. “It’s a sizable number. But you said this was like a three year thing, right? Makes sense.”

Shadow hesitated. “Can we… keep watching them?” He bit his lip and then gave in, the need and vulnerability slipping into his plea. “Even if it takes all day?”

Sonic chuckled and shook his head, still looking at the library of video logs. “Shadow the Hedgehog, asking me if we can spend all day on the couch watching TV.” He put his hands down on the couch and leaned forward, nuzzling Shadow’s nose and then giving him a quick kiss. “Of course we can.” His eyes were as soft as they’d been three nights ago on the beach.

Shadow let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Sonic zipped away as if Shadow’s breath had moved him, like a dandelion seed in a gust of wind. “But!” He reappeared in the kitchen, inhaling like he’d just run a marathon instead of the short jaunt to the kitchen. His nerves about the situation must be getting to him. He’d been so excited about showing these logs to Shadow. It was no wonder he wanted to get it right. “We’ll need snacks to tide us over.”

Shadow ate his breakfast as Sonic gathered provisions and built them a fort fit for all-day lounging.

Shadow set his plate aside when Sonic was finished and handed Sonic his to indicate he should eat it before it got too cold. “I didn’t realize we’d need all this,” he said, gesturing to the fort and the colossal mound of snacks.

“Trust me,” Sonic said, shoveling his breakfast into his mouth. “There’s a process to this.”

Shadow smiled softly, and he let his hand brush against Sonic’s thigh. “I’ll leave it to you, then.”

Sonic put down his empty plate with a satisfied sigh, then hooked his leg over Shadow’s and reclined on the couch. He held a finger over his communicator and raised lazily hooded eyes to Shadow expectantly. “Ready?”

Shadow placed a hand over the leg Sonic had sprawled across him, stroking the fur gently with his thumb, and nodded.

Sonic pressed play, and Shadow watched as the three years that Maria had spent on the Ark unfolded before him. He watched her grapple with how to get the molecular formula of her “space goo” to stick to any of the biological components she threw at it. He watched as she finally got something to work and raved about it, taking the camera with her to the tank where a tiny black and red embryo was growing. The entries flicked by as the embryo grew, as Maria started referring to it as Lizzie instead of “subject one”, and Lizzie finally made her way out of the tank and into the Ark.

A more solemn entry was filed after a few where Lizzie’s capabilities were tested.

Maria clicked on the camera without her usual gusto. Her shoulders were slumped and she looked tired.

“Day Eighty-Six on Space Station Ark,” she said, leaning back in her chair and putting her hands over her eyes. She took a deep breath and then let it out with such heavy sadness that Shadow felt his shoulders sink. He wanted to reach out and comfort her.

“We’ve come so far,” Maria said. “So far. And I don’t know what to do now. Lizzie is perfectly healthy—more than, actually. We’ve taken some samples from her and done some tests, and honestly… I have no idea how long Lizzie might live. Her cells seem to regenerate. And none of the contagions we’ve brought her cells into contact with have stuck either. For all we know, she could be immortal and completely immune to all known illnesses. Which just shows how obviously chaos goo is presenting, aside from what I can see on the microscopes. The DNA structure is in there! It’s all there, I know it’s in there, but… No matter what we try, she can’t channel the power of the original sample.”

Maria let her eyes slide off her face and looked at the camera. “I don’t know where we went wrong. She seems to understand us, and she’s so clever… But she still hasn’t said a word. I’ve checked her vocal chords, and they seem fine, but even when she tries—nothing. It’s like she doesn’t know how to express what we’re expressing. Like…”

Maria’s eyes blew wide.

“Fuck.”

Shadow blinked.

Sonic sat up. “Did she just say ‘fuck’?”

Shadow blinked again and nodded. “I’ve never heard her say that before,” he admitted.

“Fuck me!” Maria said, banging on the console. “I’m an _idiot!_ ”

Sonic and Shadow exchanged a look.

“The key to this _whole thing_ has been feelings, and I gestated her like some sort of—” Maria’s hands flexed in the air as she searched for the right word, incredulous anger written over her face. “—some sort of _science experiment!_ ”

Maria blinked and then spun her body language on a dime. “Which, to be fair, she is, but you get what I’m saying right?” Her mood spun back as she picked up her clipboard and hurled it across the room. Both hedgehogs jumped as it stuck the far wall and Maria turned back to the camera looking like a mad woman. “I should have been feeding her feelings and art and music and anything else I could think of _while she was in the womb_.”

Maria scrubbed her fingers through her hair, dislodging her headband, and leaned her elbows on the console. “I’m gonna have to teach her everything, like she’s a baby. Babies don’t know how to relate to people, they have to learn.” She gave the camera a hard look. “And I’ve only got a few years to get this right. This project doesn’t fund itself, you know…”

Maria smoothed her hair and put her headband back in place. The skin between her eyebrows was furrowed, like she was still thinking. “Maybe I can kill two birds with one stone. Now that we’ve figure out how to prompt the chaotic space goo into reproducing, we should be able to do it again. I can teach Lizzie about how to relate to people while making her a sibling and teaching them too. We’ll get twice as many research subjects, we’ll have more data to work with…”

Maria’s words trailed off as she thought. Slowly, she rose from her chair and retrieved her clipboard. She pulled a pencil out of the pocket of her lab coat and started scribbling. She wrote for a good five minutes before she looked up and realized the camera was still rolling. She turned it off without signing off.

“Well that’s ominous,” Sonic remarked.

Shadow shook his head. “I don’t think she meant it to be. And now I know why I never saw these.”

Sonic paused the next log before it started and gave Shadow a curious look. “Yeah?”

Shadow gestured at Maria. “She was our friend. She’d never want any of us to think of ourselves as failures, or better or worse than one another. These…” Shadow grimaced and tried to think of how to explain what he was feeling. “These break us down into data points, not people.” He leaned back against the couch and hugged himself gently. “She always treated us like people.”

Sonic sat up and put a hand on Shadow’s shoulder. “Do you want to stop?” he asked gently.

Shadow shook his head. “No.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against Sonic’s fingers. “Keep going.”

Sonic lay back down and pressed play.

The logs picked back up with Maria and Lizzie in front of the same tank Lizzie had grown in with a new creature gestating inside. Different logs cataloged Maria’s new strategy. She sang songs, and read books, and projected images of Lizzie’s fledgling attempts at sign language into the tank. Lizzie began to animate, making faces and starting to chirp and roar, her sign language becoming more confident and filled with the silent voice of her movements. The black and red fetus developed what looked like the armored plates of a shell, and Maria wasted no time in naming them “Shelly.” Shadow couldn’t decide if he was happy or if seeing this was tearing him apart inside. His sisters. He’d never seen them like this. So small, so vulnerable, so new to life. He watched Lizzie turn into the person he’d known right before his eyes. He watched Shelly come into the world.

And then he watched Maria have another crisis.

“Day one hundred and nineteen…” Maria sat in front of the camera and chewed her lip. She looked worried. “As you know, Lizzie has made great strides. She’s able to harness basic capabilities of the chaos goo, but it’s still faint in comparison to even some of the basic tricks I can do with my ring. Shelly is on par with her, which is _amazing_ for a subject that only came out of the tank a week ago, but the intention is to create a subject who comes out of the tank with all of the inherent abilities of the original sample.”

Maria leaned, looking frustrated. “If they don’t, then they learn everything about their powers from me. I want to learn about their powers from them.”

She leaned her head into her hand. “I don’t have any answers tonight. I’m going to have to start over again, but I don’t know how to get through to the chaos goo that I want it to come out and play.” She sighed, gave the camera a look, and then turned it off.

“How do you think she did it?” Sonic asked in the space between logs. He tossed a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

“I honestly don’t know,” Shadow said, stealing a peanut from Sonic’s hand.

The next log started with Maria fumbling with the camera so loudly that Sonic and Shadow both jumped.

Maria’s hair was disheveled and she was in pin-striped blue pajama bottoms and a NASA shirt that she’d clearly been sleeping in. She didn’t bother to announce the day before screeching into the camera, “I’m an IDIOT!” She held up her ring. “I said on my _first day_ that it was like this fucking chaos goo responded to feelings. I can’t believe it didn’t cross my mind _once_ to try and tell the goo what I wanted!” She pounded her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I let it gestate on its own, like that would be enough. Then I projected things in to stimulate it. This time! _This time!!_ ” She got close to the camera and kissed it. “This time, I’m going to carry that little embryo around like it’s my own living shadow and I’m going to tell it I want to see everything it can do and marvel with how much magic they’re going to bring to the world by showing me _everything they can do!_ ” Maria fist pumped, and clicked off the log.

Sonic paused it before the next one could start. There was a pregnant pause, as if he expected Shadow to say something.

“Did you hear her?” Sonic prompted.

Shadow tilted his head to indicate Sonic should elaborate.

“Her own living shadow…”

Shadow blinked and then blushed. “Shut up.” He put a hand on Sonic’s face and pushed him flat against the couch. Sonic laughed and pulled Shadow down on top of him. They took a quick break to kiss, and then a longer break to switch out their snacks and make some hot beverages. Kissing Sonic… Doing mundane things like making meals with him… It had all become rather practiced and domestic despite the short period they’d been engaging in such behaviors. Shadow found himself grateful for it, even longing for Sonic’s touch and his help in the kitchen in a nostalgic and present sort of way. It reminded him of the closeness he’d had with his sisters and Maria, but in a way that kept him from falling too far into the past and feeling guilty for being the only one who was around to experience such a feeling again.

Sonic wrapped himself around Shadow’s body like a security blanket as they curled up again on the couch, and Shadow was grateful for the solid warmth of him. Everything leading up to this had been surreal and new. But what came next would be even more personal.

“Ready to see what Maria has to say about little Shadow?” Sonic jabbed. Everything about his tone and posture communicated that this was a joke, but there was a searching look in Sonic’s eyes, like he really wanted to make sure Shadow was ready before they kept going.

Shadow jostled against the other hedgehog, getting more comfortable, and sipped his tea. “I’m ready.”

Sonic nodded and swapped his cup around in his hands to reach his communicator.

Maria was actually dressed when she popped back onto the screen this time. She smiled like she had a secret, and didn’t look half as defeated or frantic as she had in the preceding logs. She wore a new necklace around her neck, a thin gold chain with what looked like a clear marble hanging from it. The way the marble caught the light made it seem almost fluid. “Day one hundred and twenty-two,” Maria said, bouncing back into her seat cheerfully. She fingered her necklace and smiled her secret smile. “You won’t believe how much progress we’ve made in three days.” She sighed happily and went limp in her chair. “Shelly and Lizzie have been really good for each other. Lizzie is making bigger strides than she ever did with me, and Shelly’s powers have become significantly more pronounced. Not only can she communicate telepathically, she can also create force fields—solid rings of light, that she doesn’t even have to concentrate on to keep intact.”

Maria raised her necklace. “That’s what this is—one of Shelly’s force fields.”

She lowered the necklace and grinned like a loon. “The only thing that’s been able to break it so far is Lizzie. It withstood everything else we threw at it. I think it’s something to do with Lizzie and Shelly both having the chaos genes from my space goo—which kind of make sense. If that stuff really does function like the emeralds my grandfather told me about all those years ago—and I’ve only found more evidence to support that theory as we’ve continued with the project, crazy as it may seem—then nothing would be able to take it on except the same power with an equally strong heart.”

She raised her shoulders and beamed with giddy glee. “Isn’t this exciting? It’s exactly the sort of thing I wanted to learn when we started all this.”

She put a hand to her forehead and feigned a swoon.

“Anyway,” she said, righting herself and holding the necklace back up for the camera. “That’s not all that’s going on here. Guess what else it is?” She rolled the marble back and forth between her two hands and gave the camera that secret smile again, then she laughed. “Of course you can’t guess, you’re a video log.” She knocked her head gently with the heel of her palm, then nuzzled the little marble in her hand. “I wanted little Shadow to know they’ve got sisters that’ll protect them once they grow up and come out into the world. I wanted them to know from the very beginning that they’re not alone.”

She turned the marble away from her face and towards the camera. “They’re in here right now, just starting to grow. You can’t see anything yet, but as the cells start to fuse and reproduce, we’ll make them a bigger tank. Lizzie’ll help me with transfers, and Shelly will help me with production.” Maria shrugged. “Heck, I’ll probably have them both in on the engineering in case they have any bright ideas. If they find it boring, I’ll send them off to practice instead, but it’s just so exciting getting to make them a part of little Shadow’s existence from day one.”

She let the marble fall against her chest with a blissful look. Then she made a distasteful face. “Man, if little Shadow’s anything like their sisters, they’re tank is gonna get real difficult to haul around at some point.”

Sonic choked on his hot chocolate as Maria flexed her arms at the camera and gave them a determined look.

“Guess I better start working out now!” Maria changed her pose and then clicked the camera off while Sonic hacked and tried to get his breath back. Shadow put his tea down and took Sonic’s hot chocolate to keep the blue hedgehog from spilling. He held Sonic until he was breathing steadily again, which took longer than usual between the laughing and the coughing.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Shadow said when Sonic was finally done.

Sonic chuckled again. “Says you.”

Shadow rolled his eyes and stole a kiss. “You’re just enjoying getting to see all this new stuff about me,” he goaded. He pulled Sonic into his lap. “Does it make you hot knowing how powerful I really am?”

Sonic’s eyebrows went up and he laughed with nervous anticipation. “Oh, Shadz,” he said, cupping Shadow’s face. “I’ve know how powerful you were since the first time we fought.” He shrugged gently. “Even if it did kind of seem like you were faking how cool you were at the time.”

Shadow’s cool move at seduction shattered under those words with outrage. “Faking?!”

Sonic laughed and kissed Shadow before he could say anything else.

They took another accidental kissing break that coaxed Shadow out of his nostalgia and pinned him in the present under a very limber blue hedgehog.

There was an easy comfort to kissing Sonic now. Something that hadn’t been there at the start. Something warm and stable that Shadow didn’t know how to put words to. A stronger, more stable version of the feelings he’d had under the stars, but something he still couldn’t name.

He pushed up against Sonic, trying to give him back all the comfort and stability the feel of Sonic’s lips against his inspired in him.

In was all he could think to do in lieu of words.

By the time they stopped to catch their breath, their hot drinks were cold. They finished them off and made new ones before returning to Maria’s logs.

Maria had meant what she said about taking Shadow with her everywhere, and about Lizzie and Shelly being part of his evolution. As he grew and developed, Shelly created new gestation tanks for him, and Lizzie exerted her physical prowess in hauling them around as they became too big and heavy for Maria to carry by herself. Three people from Maria’s team—an average man, a muscled woman, and a slighter woman—all tried to lift one of Shadow’s larger tanks, to the snuffled laughter of Lizzie, the politely hidden amusement of Shelly, and the ravenous scientific glee of Maria. Lizzie lifted it with one hand, probably just to show off.

Shadow’s heart swelled in his chest. He wasn’t even really there yet, and his family was all around him. Lizzie lugged him around as if he was light as a feather. Her strength and agility made it easy to take Shadow with her. No matter where Maria decided to go, Lizzie was able to get Shadow there with her. And, when it was time, she pieced his old tanks so Maria could move him to bigger, more complex ones. Shelly _made_ those tanks—but of course she did. She’d always been good with barriers—both making and lifting them, even when they weren’t physical. Shadow couldn’t name the number of times she’d ended a dispute just by putting her hand on someone’s shoulder and talking with them. The way Shelly communicated made it impossible to misunderstand her. There was no getting hung up on her phrasing—you understood her as if you _were_ her. Shadow linked his fingers with Sonic’s as he watched, wishing he still had her with him to help make sense of the mess in his own head.

And then there was Maria.

It was as if she’d been given new life as a researcher. She seemed tireless, and her cheer endless. Every new development was cause for celebration. There were even logs in her room, Maria in nothing more than her pajamas, talking to Shadow and his sisters about the old Chaos Emerald myths, and how within them rested powers like those. Lizzie and Shelly sat on Maria’s bed with Shadow’s tank nestled between them. It pushed them farther and farther apart as it grew.

The Shadow on screen, in the tanks, grew with such swiftness. At first, he’d been nothing more than a tiny bunch of black and red cells. Then a spikey ball. But as time went on, the hedgehog that Shadow saw in the mirror unfurled in the tanks depicted on screen.

Shadow felt so unlike the neutral body hanging suspended in amniotic fluid on the small television screen. That Shadow looked peaceful. That Shadow looked vulnerable.

That Shadow looked like he might have a shot at saving Maria.

The next log was the day before Shadow was due to come out. Maria was nervous and excited, but ultimately hopeful.

Shadow bit his lip and groaned as Maria shut off the camera.

Sonic, ever attentive, paused the video. “Got something to say, Shadz?”

Shadow shook his head. “No, I just… I remember this next part.” He leaned his head against Sonic’s shoulder and put his arms around Sonic’s waste, drawing the blue hedgehog more snugly against him and seeking comfort. “I just wonder what she’ll say about it.”

Sonic brushed his hand over Shadow’s quills soothingly. “One way to find out.”

Shadow nodded and Sonic unpaused the video.

Maria’s hair was all pushed to one side of her head, like an explosion had gone off beside her and she hadn’t bothered to change her hair since. Her headband was missing. Her coat hung off her shoulders, and the reading glasses she sometimes wore when making notes threatened to leap from the tip of her nose.

“Whoa!” Sonic said. “What the heck happened?”

Shadow groaned and put a hand over his face. He peeked at Maria through his fingers.

She stared at the camera wordlessly, her mouth agape in shock. Then she blinked her eyes and shook her head like she was only just then realizing where she was. “Sorry, sorry… Day… Hell, what fucking day is it? One hundred and forty-four? Forty-five?” She waved her hand dismissively. “Day after the last day I said in the log preceding this.” She straightened up in her chair and readjusted her glasses, her shocked expression still spread like glue over her face and her hair still blown all to the left. She refocused on the camera. Glee slowly invaded her facial features. “It might be a little late to say this,” she said. “Shadow’s only just come out. Lizzie and Shelly had to retain them and set their head straight. But…” She bit her lip and then squealed with excitement, banging her hands on the console. “I think we did it!”

Sonic stopped the video. “What the fuck did you do?”

Shadow sighed and fell into Sonic’s lap, rolling his face into the soft warm fur of Sonic’s stomach. “I blew up the tank.”

“With less perfectly sculpted, lean hedgehog stomach in your mouth there, buddy.”

Shadow lifted his mouth up. “I blew up the tank!”

Sonic’s belly laugh shook his body before it was audible. Shadow’s shoulders rose towards his head with embarrassment. What he wouldn’t give to sink through the floor and disappear like one of Shelly’s force fields.

Sonic hugged him and turned his face up to look at him. “You blew up the tank they were keeping you in? Heck, Shadow, no wonder she was so happy.”

Shadow blushed. “Listen. If you suddenly woke up in a tank full of fluid that you couldn’t breathe, you’d do the same.”

Sonic made a thoughtful sound. “Sounds fake. I wouldn’t ever be in that situation.” He made an appropriately wounded sound when Shadow punched him gently in the stomach. “But hey; I admire your self-preservation.” Sonic brushed Shadow’s quills fondly again. His hand traveled down over Shadow’s back and side.

Shadow shivered and shifted, lost in the warm look of Sonic’s eyes.

He couldn’t figure it out.

“Why do you look so happy?” Shadow whispered. He reached up and took hold of Sonic by the bandana around his neck. In another time, he might have thrown or choked Sonic with such a hold. Now he just wanted to keep him close. Keep those warm eyes on him.

A small, surprised gust of air fell from Sonic’s lips. It didn’t seem like he’d been expecting that question. “Well, I…” He put his hand over Shadow’s on his bandana. Before, he might have tried to get Shadow to let go, or twist his hand into some sort of restraining hold. Now, the heavy gravity of it seemed to say “don’t let go.”

Shadow waited. This moment felt big somehow. Important.

Sonic’s eyes searched his, looking lost, hopeful, and scared.

Finally, he looked away and made a joke. “What, you’re telling me you wouldn’t want to see baby pictures of me if you had the chance?” He laughed, like he normally did—but it felt too normal. Like he was measuring the cadence of it, trying to make it sound just like every other laugh he’d ever laughed before.

Shadow lowered his eyes back to the soft, light fur on Sonic’s stomach. He couldn’t articulate what he was feeling. It was like something in him had just deflated. All the air gone out of it.

“I see.”

“Don’t ask Tails about any of that,” Sonic rattled off far too quickly.

Shadow leered and raised a challenging eyebrow. “Oh? Knows something, does he?”

Sonic looked horrified. And froze comically under Shadow.

Shadow laughed, not knowing if this was real or a ruse Sonic was putting on for his benefit to break the strange weight that had fallen on Shadow’s chest.

“Let’s get back to you blowing up your tank on your first day, yeah?” Sonic didn’t wait for a response before pressing play. The way he took Shadow’s hand and held it felt like some sort of apology, but Shadow didn’t know for what. He rolled over in Sonic’s lap and turned his eyes back to the screen.

Maria was still dancing in her chair with happiness. “Maybe some researchers wouldn’t consider your test subject blowing up their tank as a good first sign, but given the properties of the chaos goo we’re researching and that we’re trying to foster those abilities in a life form, _I’d_ say it’s a great sign.” Maria winked at the camera and finally fixed her hair.

“To me, this says that little Shadow is fully aware of their capabilities. They woke up, felt threatened, and took measures to ensure their safety.” Maria put her hands behind her head and leaned back in her chair, looking more relaxed than Shadow had seen her since her first day of logs. “If that doesn’t scream that little Shadow has feelings and a will, I don’t know what does.” She smiled at the camera. “Plus, seems like little Shadow has something else their sisters didn’t have when they came out.” She touched her throat and her eyes softened. “A voice.”

Shadow yearned to be able to let Maria hear his voice again. “Maria…” he murmured, wishing the sound could reach out across time to her. Sonic stroked his thumb over Shadow’s knuckles, but the gesture only made Shadow feel hollow instead of comforted.

Maria picked up her clipboard and looked down through her glasses. “Depending on how things go, though, I might need to design some sort of stabilizer to help little Shadow control their powers. All that explosive force was fine for a first go, but we don’t want them hurting anyone by accident. Maybe something they can use as a focus, or an inhibitor.”

Shadow’s free hand moved to touch the circle of gold around the bracer on his other arm.

“She made your power inhibitors?” Sonic asked.

Shadow nodded gently. “Mhm.”

“But like… to help you, right?”

Shadow drew his knees up into his chest, curling protectively around himself. He didn’t feel like being vulnerable with Sonic right then. For some reason, this felt like giving too much of himself away while the other hedgehog risked nothing.

“Everything Maria did was to help us.” He left it at that, not inclined to elaborate further.

Maria gave the camera a conspiratorial look before taking off her glasses and setting them aside with her clipboard. “Maybe this won’t surprise you, but my grandfather’s story about the seven chaos emeralds had another part about a bigger, more powerful emerald; one that was supposed to be the master of all the other’s. It could nullify the power of the seven emeralds if they fell into evil hands, or boost their power if they were used for good.” She waved her hand dismissively and rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it could be used to nullify or boost regardless of the intentions. “Good” and “evil” are so contextual, and morality is all grey anyway—but still… It’s an interesting concept. A Master Emerald… Maybe I could make something like that for little Shadow. I’ll start experiments with what’s left of the chaos goo. With the right emotional stimulus and vision, I might be able to produce something like that for Shadow.” She winced at the camera. “Though I’ll be sure to get Shelly to explain what they are and get Shadow’s consent before we put something like that on them. Wouldn’t want them to blow up the whole station just because they got a little freaked out or misunderstood what I was saying.”

She swept her hair out of her face. “Anyway, I better go find my headband and introduce myself to little Shadow properly now that the girls have worked everything out with them.” She danced in her chair again and squealed with joy. “I’m just so excited to meet them!”

Sonic chuckled fondly as Maria clicked the camera off and squeezed Shadow’s hand. “Man, she really loved you from day one, didn’t she?”

Yes, she had.

Shadow sighed, the heavy weight of melancholy bearing down on him. He missed her so much. That first day had been so… startling and magical. All this knowledge he had already rattling around in his brain. All these feelings and urges. Senses and instincts. It had been overwhelming, his first few hours out of the pod. He didn’t know what he would have done if his sisters hadn’t been there to hold him down and help make sense of it. And Maria… The affection and excitement had radiated off of her even after she left the room.

It had only been stronger when she returned.

Shadow wished he could have felt that safe forever.

He watched wordlessly as Maria’s logs went on. Her report after her cursory examination, where she was startled to learn Shadow was boy. She made a face and said something about sex and gender not being the same thing anyway, but his sisters had both decided they were girls and that Shadow didn’t seem to dislike they/them pronouns, but was definitely using he/him for himself and seemed to be nurturing those aspects of his voice and body. She went on about how articulate he was as well. It was fascinating to her that his chromosomes had added a Y into the mix, though the actual structure was much more complicated than human DNA. None of it mattered per say, she stressed. Shadow would be whoever he would be. But from a scientific standpoint, it was of great importance to note the difference, both in his DNA and his vocal ability. Both things stood in contrast to his sisters.

It made Shadow feel warm to hear her say such things about him, but also curious about himself. Her fascination with his differences made him wonder what had prompted them too.

Maria theorized that more of the original goo’s DNA had been nurtured during the gestation process, and perhaps the gender of whatever alien creature she was working with felt more like a man than another gender.

It was as good a theory as any, Shadow supposed. Maria told her logs she would keep her eye out for other evidence, and moved on to putting Shadow through his paces.

She tested his physical capabilities against Lizzie, and his mental ones against Shelly’s. He wasn’t quite on the same level of each of them, but he was more balanced. He was quicker than both of them too. The things he was asked to do were small until Maria was satisfied with her inhibitor rings and Shadow had accepted them. Then, the asks became increasingly more complicated. Shelly and Lizzie challenged him and rose to the challenge of meeting him every step of the way. Yet, no golden inhibitors circled their wrists. It was as if they were approaching from one side of a barrier and Shadow from the other, both of them trying to maintain balance and focus.

The memories of that time washed over Shadow as the logs continued. Maria’s logs were about data—but Shadow’s memories were of the times in between their training and schooling that led to the data.

Shadow fell deeper into his memories as Maria’s logs became more infrequent, the number of days between them stretching longer and longer.

The things that weren’t recorded were the things Shadow missed most. The tea parties. The dance competitions. The movie nights and the book clubs. The talking about their feelings, and the friendly competitions of strength, speed, and communication.

Shadow remembered the day they had been introduced to roller skates, and he’d loved them so much that Maria had invented his rocket skates.

He remembered the day Lizzie deadlifted five hundred pounds and the day Shelly had figured out curved barriers, and instantly put them to use catching Maria as she swooned over them.

The day Shelly had made a force field big enough to encase the space station.

The day Shadow had stopped time, and for everyone else it was as if he’d blinked out of existence, and then back into it. Maria described it as teleporting at first, but adjusted her terminology when Shadow told her what it had been like for him. He remembered the way she’d smiled and said, “It’s like you’re controlling the chaos around you, and wading through it on your own terms.”

All of their triumphs and happiness, reduced to small sentences in Maria’s logs so she could get back to the life they were all living together as quickly as possible.

Shadow remembered waiting for her in the corridor outside sometimes, impatient to take Maria back to the group or present her with some poem or trinket he’d crafted for her and take her off to their next adventure—even if it was only a new recipe for cucumber sandwiches Shelly had come up with and a blend of tea Lizzie had put together herself.

All of those reminiscings fell away when Maria clicked the camera back on looking small and alone.

Shadow didn’t remember her ever looking like that. Not for long anyway.

“Day nine hundred and ninety,” Maria said quietly. She gave the camera a long look before her eyes fell away. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over herself. “I’ve just had word from Earth, and… Well, I always knew that my research would have a price. I just didn’t expect it to be them trying to take Shadow, Lizzie, and Shelly away from me.” Maria was quiet for a while, the furrow between her eyebrows deepening. Shadow knew that look. It meant she was thinking.

“I think they want to use them like weapons,” she confessed to the camera. “And I don’t know what to do about that. They just got here. They didn’t sign up to be soldiers. And the things we could _learn_ from them, if people would only _listen._ ” She bit her lip and gave the camera a pleading look. “I’ve long since bypassed the tech they installed to monitor us. Maybe that’s why they’re pushing now. They told me I’d have four years at least up here to do my research, but I’m worried they might be pushing for things to wrap up sooner rather than later… I hear tensions are high amongst the United Federation countries. Any of them would kill for an edge, if it comes to war—and maybe even if it doesn’t.”

Maria choked on her words and brought a hand to her face to cover her eyes. She pinched her nose and looked back up with tears in her eyes. “I had such high hopes for this project,” she told the camera. “I wanted to give the world to someone who would cherish it.” Her grief overcame her and she looked away, her frame shaking with a held-in sob. “Instead, I’ve put them in a position where their options are a life on the run as enemies of the state, or working for people who will just treat them like… like _things_.” Maria spat the last word, her disdain for anyone who use words like that for her family evident.

Shadow’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t known anything about this. He did some quick math in his head. This was one hundred days before _that_ day—one hundred days before she died and he fell away to earth without her.

Maria wiped her face and got her breath back. Then she glared at the camera. “I don’t know what’s coming, but I know damn well I’m not going to let anyone take those three away from me and use them like tools. This is their world too. They deserve to be part of it. They deserve to make their own choices. They deserve to have _lives_ , dammit!” She beat the console with her fist and shook her head. “They all feel things so deeply. I’ve laughed with them, cried with them, comforted them. I’ve played and loved and learned—learned _so_ much more than I could have ever hoped to.” She shook her head more strongly. “No one’s getting them. No one’s going to take that from them and _use_ them to make war. I won’t let it happen.” She smiled weakly at the camera. “Now I just to figure out how to keep it from happening.”

Shadow whined as she clicked off the camera. He couldn’t hold the sound back. Now it all made sense. Everything that had happened… The attack, the lack of explanation. _Why_ Maria had died. It was to protect him and his sisters. To keep them from being used by human monsters and turned into monsters themselves.

Sonic folded in around him. “Hey,” he whispered. “You’re okay. It’s not your fault. She saved you, Shadow. She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for that. _I_ wouldn’t.”

Shadow gasped, the shock of Sonic’s last words pulling him from the ocean of despair he was in like a life preserver.

Before Shadow could think it through, he reached up and kissed Sonic. He fought his way into Sonic’s lap, straddling the blue hedgehog’s legs, and pressed Sonic back into the cushions, licking solace from Sonic’s tongue.

Sonic held Shadow to him with tight arms around Shadow’s waist, strong hands on his back that brushed between his quills and strove to pull him in, in, in.

It made Shadow feel contained. Wanted.

Safe.

It was then that he realized… This had turned into something more than physical. When he hadn’t been looking, this blue idiot had wormed his way into Shadow’s heart.

Shadow broke the kiss and pulled in a breath. “Do you mean that?” He leveled a serious look at Sonic.

The same mix of hope and fear was in Sonic’s eyes from before—but it seemed that his was easier for him to confess than whatever it was he wouldn’t say before. He nodded and touched his lips chastely to Shadow’s. “Yeah. I mean it.”

Shadow scoffed, still fearful. Sonic had refused to be vulnerable with him before. Why should he believe his words now. “But do you mean it just because you’re a hero?”

Sonic smirked and raised his eyebrows. “Please. No one gets to hurt you, Shadz, not on my watch. And not just because I’m a hero.” Sonic dipped his head and kissed Shadow’s neck. “Because you’re mine.”

Shadow tipped his head back with a sigh and closed his eyes. His fingers tangled in Sonic’s quills, keeping the other hedgehog’s lips on him. “Say it again,” he whispered.

“Mine,” Sonic said immediately, pressing the word into Shadow’s skin with his lips. “You’re mine, Shadow the Hedgehog. Every part of your chaos-emerald, hyper-feeling, alien ass.” Sonic put his hand in Shadow’s quills and bent him back further, his lips falling to Shadow’s exposed chest, just over his heart.

Shadow couldn’t breathe. The feelings welling up inside of him were too much. Emotions fell into breaths and got stuck in his throat. Water blurred his vision as his body sought to get rid of the excess emotional chemicals flooding his brain. He never thought he’d be happy like this again. It scared him so much, and he wanted it so desperately anyway.

He took a handful of Sonic’s quills and guided the hedgehog’s head back up to meet his own eyes. “Then promise me you won’t try and save me by dying on me.”

Sonic grinned at him, the cocky hedgehog Shadow never thought he’d feel this way towards fully back and looking at Shadow with no more fear in his eyes—just cocky determination and mischief.

“Seems like a stupid promise to make, given who I’ve got watching my back.” Sonic swiped his thumb over Shadow’s cheek. “But, sure. You got it. I won’t go dyin’ on ya, Shadz.”

Shadow let the air go out of him with relief and leaned his head against Sonic’s. He let his eyes close, a bone-weary exhaustion that he hadn’t known he was fending off suddenly weighing him down. He let all pretense of fending it off go. He didn’t need to, here with Sonic. Not anymore. “Then I guess I can be yours. So long as you’re willing to accept that responsibility.”

Sonic chuckled. “Responsibility,” he quoted, shaking his head gently, not dislodging his forehead from Shadow’s. “You make it all sound so serious. Just say you love me and get it over with.”

The words went through Shadow like a bolt of lightning.

There it was.

That was it.

Those were the words he’d been searching for since that night under the stars.

He hadn’t realized.

“I love you,” Shadow said instantly.

Sonic stopped breathing.

Shadow opened his eyes and pinned Sonic with them. Then he said it again. “I love you.” Simple, quiet, irrefutable.

Sonic’s breath went out of him all at once with a word. “Fuck.”

Shadow smiled as Sonic pressed his lips fiercely against his own. It had been so hard to find the words to identify what he’d been feeling, but Sonic had used one of the broadest words in the world to reciprocate the same feeling. And it was only the start to Sonic’s words, like that simple exclamation had broken a damn of things he’d been too scared to say over the week. Kisses punctuated the space between “I love you too” and “I didn’t think you felt the same way.” Glancing touches and friction skated between phrases, connecting “I thought you only wanted this,” and “I was scared I would lose you when quarantine ended.”

A torrent of words, all meaning the same thing; Sonic felt it too.

Shadow toppled Sonic sideways onto the couch with a kiss and made love with him. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him to think of it that way now, but the physicality was no longer just touching—it was expression of what he was feeling; and he felt it reciprocated in every brush of Sonic’s skin against his.

After, he lay breathing in Sonic’s arms and holding him in his own; heavy, and unwilling to relinquish the moment yet. Sonic’s breathing mirrored his own, in synch and steady—vibrating and willful. Shadow nestled his nose into Sonic’s fur, grounded by the steady rise and fall, basking in the solid and irrefutable feeling of Sonic’s presence.

“Promise me again I won’t lose you,” Shadow said.

Sonic kissed his temple and said the most beautiful thing Shadow had ever heard. “You’ll never lose me, Shadz.”

Then Sonic’s stomach rumbled, and the seriousness of the moment fell apart with the buoyancy of their laughter. They left the couch to make dinner, and ate outside to enjoy the sunset—though Shadow suspected Sonic’s unsubtle attempts at footsy also had something to do with his choice of eating arrangements. It wasn’t until after they’d washed up that Shadow was reminded of the logs when Sonic said, “Hey, we’ve still got one more. You wanna watch it now, or save it for tomorrow?”

Shadow smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s watch it now. Cap off the day. Besides…” He drew Sonic to him and kissed his cheek dearly. “What could one more hurt.”

Sonic beamed and blushed, looking at the floor bashfully. “For someone who came out of a capsule, ya sure know how to make a guy feel cherished, Shadz.”

Shadow sat down on the couch and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it’s because I came out of a capsule that I’m so good at it.”

Sonic laughed and leaned against Shadow’s shoulder, nuzzling it gently. “Maybe.” He pressed play on his communicator, and took Shadow’s hand as the last log began to play.

Whatever Shadow had been expecting from Maria’s final log, it hadn’t been this.

There was no log date, but he knew what day it was. A familiar scene from an unfamiliar angle swept over the screen in front of him.

He watched as his capsule slid away into space. He could even hear the muffled sound of his screamed “Maria!” as it fell away. Maria lay face down on the console she’d used to launch Shadow from, just like he remembered. The bullet had thrown her back, and the blood had splattered from the entry wound. He could make out an exit wound on her back. The soldier approached her, gun still pointed at her. Then, with a roar that sounded like a cross between an elephant and a mountain lion, a large black and red bi-pedal lizard charged through the door and bowled the soldier over. She ripped the gun from the soldier’s grip and threw it away to the side. Then she pinned the soldier to the floor and roared.

“Lizzie, don’t hurt her!”

Shadow’s eyes whipped back to Maria. She clutched at the console she’d used to launch Shadow’s capsule from and grit her teeth in a manic expression of ferocity and pain. A plume of red stained her shoulder, but blood didn’t spread in any worrying way.

Shot, but not dying.

Shadow felt like he was paralyzed.

“Take her to Shelly. Have her shield the memory and replace it with my death.”

Lizzie switched to pinning the soldier with her legs and signed, “Why would Shelly make this piece of shit soldier remember that?”

Shadow smiled. Lizzie had always had a mouth on her. It was good to see her voice in action again, even just as a recording.

Maria trained her eyes on the soldier. “You. What are your orders exactly?”

The soldier shook her head and babbled something in Chinese. Shadow hadn’t familiarized himself as well as he should have. Maria’s mad grin widened. “That’s why, Lizzie. They’re after us, alive. As long as I’m alive, they’ll keep trying to take us. Even if they can’t take you, Shelly, or Shadow, so long as they get me, they get my research. But if we’re dead, if we’re gone, they can’t get us.”

“But not actually dead, right?” Lizzie signed back, one of her eye ridges rising skeptically.

Maria laughed, breathy and uneven. “Not you and Shelly, no. You remember what I told you: guard and protect.”

Shadow’s mind reeled. Told them? When? Why didn’t he remember this grand strategy she was referencing?

Maria continued. “Shelly shields us off, and you take on anyone who gets through. You can hardly do that if you’re dead.”

Lizzie growled with concern and signed, “What about you?”

“I’ll… figure something out.”

Lizzie whined. “What about Shadow?”

Maria shook her head. “They can’t contain Shadow. His heart’s too strong for that. And he can always take off his power inhibitors if they try bring out the big guns. It’s us we need to worry about. We need to make them think this place is dead and empty, with nothing left for them.”

Lizzie made the snuffling huff noise Shadow knew was her laugh and signed, “You always were the smartest of the bunch, doc.”

Maria held her shoulder and limped towards another console. “Thanks, Lizzie. Now you and Shelly go take care of the rest of our friends…”

The recording cut out and switched to another. This time, Maria faced head on with a camera in a console, probably from the computer she was using.

“Day… Ugh, fuck it, I don’t know what day it is anymore. That’s not the important part.” She grimaced and started again. “This is Doctor Maria Robotnick, from the International Space Research Station Ark. If you’re listening to this... Well, I hope you’re on our side.” She winced and gripped her shoulder. “I’ve been shot, and my team has been captured. We were attacked by three different world governments today on baseless accusations of developing weapons of mass destruction. All we’ve created so far is superior fiber-optics cables that don’t need boosters thanks to our access to variable gravity, an anti-asteroid canon that one of our engineers lovingly named ‘the eclipse canon’ because it reminds them of something out of a Pink Floyd album, and three new lifeforms with powers I’d hoped they’d get to use to keep our world safe… Now I don’t know if two of them will even see that world. And Shadow…”

Maria looked away from the camera, her expression a mix of sadness and desperate hope. “I hope he’s alright.”

Shadow reached out and teleported without thinking. His fingers brushed the curved glass of Sonic’s CRT televion, touching the pixels of Maria’s injured shoulder, tears streaming down his face unbidden. “Maria…” he whispered.

Maria squared herself towards the camera again as if she’d heard him. “But never mind all that. This is the important part of the message. If you’re hearing this, you figured out that we’re not just an empty piece of space junk floating aimlessly through the sky and that there’s still something here. If you’re here to help us, you need to find Shadow. He’s the only one who will be able to break through Shelly’s shield. He’s the only one who’s powerful enough. Find him, and tell him we’re still up here. Even if I don’t make it, Lizzie and Shelly should. Please… Find him and come rescue them.”

Her expression turned hard. “But if you’re another power hungry fascist who wants to get their grubby fingers on weapons so they can control people, you can go fuck yourself—Shadow will never help the likes of you.”

Shadow closed his eyes, taking small measured breaths. He felt like his lungs were trapped in a box that was too small for them. His sisters… They were alive?!

Maria’s eyes turned soft. “And Shadow…”

Shadow’s heart stopped and his stomach flipped. “Maria,” he answered.

“If you’re watching this, I’m so proud of you. Be strong for just a little longer, okay? I know it hasn’t been easy, but I hope you’ve experienced all of the beauty the earth has to offer and have found some good people to share it with. I hope… I hope you found what I know is worth protecting down there.” She stroked the screen like she used to stroke his ears when she encouraged him through something. “I love you, Shadow. Hopefully, I’ll see you again soon.”

Maria grit her teeth and raised herself over a different set of controls. She fiddled with some buttons. A pod on the side of the room hissed as its lid lifted and opened.

“What’s that?” Sonic asked.

Shadow answered automatically, too absorbed in what was happening to register Sonic’s presence. “It’s a cryostasis pod…”

Her watched her get in and seal the pod shut. He eyes hung on Maria’s face as frost gathered on the glass and obscured her from view. He sat motionless in front of Sonic’s tiny television as the recording cut out and left him with nothing but the blank screen and his own reflection.

Then, slowly, as if the words might break if he said them too fast, he tested out saying the thought racing hopefully through his head. “Maria is… alive.”

He heard Sonic rise from the couch, but it felt like it was happening a million miles away. His head was a hurricane.

“Shadz…”

He didn’t respond to his name. It didn’t feel like his anyway.

“Shadow.” A solid hand came down on his shoulder, but still Shadow didn’t respond.

Nothing about the world around him felt real. Everything in him had narrowed to that moment he’d fallen away from the Ark and been gripped by the Earth’s orbit. He’d thought Maria was dead for fifty years. And it might not be true.

He couldn’t wait a second more.

Shadow teleported to the door. He stared at the translucent dome that surrounded the area and then touched the cache of one of his power inhibitors.

“Shadow!”

He looked impassively over his shoulder as one of the bracelets fell away. And then the other. He could see Sonic, but it was like he wasn’t really seeing him. The second bracelet fell from his wrist and Shadow took a deep breath as he felt the unrestrained power of chaos rise within him.

Sonic’s eyes went wide with fear. That seemed to slide by Shadow’s mind too, even as Sonic seemed to forget his speed and stumbled to get across the room to him.

Shadow teleported to the edge of the barrier. He cracked his knuckles and stretched his neck, then chambered a punch.

The whole island seemed to shake with the force of the blow.

Shadow followed it with a kick that felt even stronger.

This power he had. It was erratic at the best of times. But he didn’t need to have focus to shatter this thing into a thousand tiny pieces. He only needed power.

“Shadow!”

Shadow turned his head marginally, just enough to take in Sonic sprinting forth from the house. He clutched his chest, like he was having trouble breathing, and grabbed one of the porch supports to steady himself and catch his breath.

“Shadow!” he yelled again, like he was trying to keep the black hedgehog’s attention. “You can’t! We still might have that sickness from the other world!”

Shadow turned his head away, back to the barrier. His next punch made the barrier quiver like jello.

Hasty footsteps and labored breathing came from behind him, and two blue arms flung themselves around Shadow as he readied his next punch.

Shadow tried for a kick, but was thrown off balance. His temper bristled, and power radiated off of him in jagged red spikes of energy.

“It’s just one more week!” Sonic pleaded, coughing. “One more week—cough—and then we can go save—cough!” Sonic fell away from Shadow straining for breath. He sank to his knees in the sand, one hand keeping him from falling completely prone, the other on his chest as he fought to inhale.

Shadow froze halfway through a kick, and blinked.

The haze between him and everything around him lifted, and he snapped back to himself.

“Sonic?” he whispered.

Sonic looked up at Shadow with pleading eyes. Shadow watched them roll back as Sonic lost consciousness and swayed. He caught Sonic before the blue hedgehog could hit the sand.

He tore off a glove and put his hand in front of Sonic’s nose and mouth. The gentle whoosh of air reassured him that Sonic was breathing, but also told him it was shallow and labored.

Shadow felt himself start to cry with frustration.

Why was it always everything at once?

He clutched Sonic to him and yelled at the heavens.

No matter what he did now, he risked losing someone; Maria if he stayed, Sonic if he went.

But he knew what Maria would want him to do…

Shadow hoisted Sonic up in his arms and stood. Feeling powerless and defeated, he took Sonic back into the house and lay him on their bed. Then, he found the communicator he’d discarded on his first day, still safe where Sonic had left it on the breakfast bar.

The sun was already slipping from the sky, but Shadow needed to get through.

Tails answered with surprising delay given how quickly he usually picked up for Sonic.

“Shadow?!” The fox blinked onto the screen, looking harried and sounding surprised. “Why are you call—?”

“Be quiet and listen to me,” Shadow said calmly. “I don’t have time to explain. Sonic is sick. It’s worse than you projected.”

Tail’s expression fell. “How much worse.”

Shadow shook his head. “A lot worse. He passed out from coughing. He can’t run.”

Tails covered his eyes with a hand and made a motion for Shadow to continue.

“Those logs you got for him from the Ark, they explained some things about how he and I got out of that other world, why we resonated with those rocks. I can use them to fix him.” He didn’t know that for certain, but if Maria’s stories were true, it was within the realm of possibility—and he was done losing people. “Get them to me as fast as you can.”

The fox huffed like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Great. I can’t believe it.” He scrunched up his face in anger and kicked something off screen. Then he sagged and ran his hand through the cowlick of fur on his brow. “I sure wish you’d called like an hour earlier, Shadow.”

Shadow’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because they’re gone.” Tails gave him the saddest, most helpless look he’d ever seen on the inventor’s face. “Someone stole them.”

Shadow rolled his eyes. “Then simply explain the situation to the doctor, and—”

Tails scoffed and then raised his voice. It was the first time Shadow had ever heard the polite young man interrupt someone. “You think I’d say they were gone if Eggman had them?! Amy and Knuckles could get them back for you in a matter of hours if that was the case.” Tails fell back into his defeated melancholy and gestured weakly towards the front of his workshop. “Everyone—even him—is out looking for them.”

Shadow blinked and re-evaluated. He needed those stones, and he couldn’t risk leaving the dome. Even if he was immune to this sickness like Maria’s research suggested, he could still carry it, give it to others. He’d have to find a way to get the stones back while observing those parameters.

“Any leads?” he asked.

“One,” Tails sighed. He touched a button on his communicator and a notification appeared in the top of Shadow’s holofield. He touched it, and a video opened. A bat dressed in purple and black dashed through the dimly lit workshop, and then flew away through the window. Tails’ portrait came back to the front of the screen as he spoke. “She was the one who came to deliver all those groceries we got for you guys. I guess she took the moment to case the workshop then…”

Shadow re-evaluated again, his mind going quickly through scenarios. He couldn’t chase her. He might be able to help identify her if given enough time and data to work with—but that wasn’t efficient.

Maybe if he could offer her something more than just the gems as they were…

“Can you rig me up with a way to send a broadcast?” Shadow said. “I have an idea that might lure her out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listen to music a lot while writing. For this chapter ["Lost Impact" from the Shadow the Hedgehog game soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7WsKu7WDK0) featured heavily while writing the Maria logs.
> 
> [Arabian Skies from the Spindash album](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoPJt3_4Do&list=PLBsm_SagFMmfAwM3SDHujgrbs9txKuQpZ&index=7) also featured heavily when Shadow has his dissasociative episode. For some reason, the tracks many layers make me think of having to deal with too many things at once--but in a cool jam sort of way.


	5. Day 8: Bargaining

Tails had said it wouldn’t take long to rig up a broadcasting app—especially since he suspected that the thief had hacked into their private lines originally in order to get the intel she’d needed to pull off such a heist—but it felt like an eternity to Shadow as he lay next to Sonic, stroking Sonic’s blue quills and watching him breathe.

He paused in his strokes to lay a hand over Sonic’s forehead. He was burning up.

Why hadn’t Shadow noticed it earlier when they’d been wrapped up together watching Maria’s logs?

The coughing fits over his hot chocolate and in the water during swimming lessons…

The way he’d been progressively slowing down and losing energy…

Shadow had seen it all.

Why hadn’t he put it together?

Then again, he’d never been sick a day in his life. He supposed now that Maria or the Chaos Emeralds or whatever alien genetics she’d used to create him were to thank for that. Given the high chance of contagion that the fox and the doctor had impressed on them when they’d returned, his DNA was probably the only reason he wasn’t burning up and fighting for breath right along with Sonic.

He watched the peach fur of Sonic’s chest rise and fall—gentle, shallow breaths.

He started when Sonic’s hand brushed against his face, then settled when it came to rest on his cheek.

“You’re still here,” Sonic said. His eyes were tired, his voice too soft.

Shadow put his hand over Sonic’s and pressed a kiss into the other hedgehog’s palm. “I am.”

Sonic sighed and closed his eyes, a small wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “I thought you’d be gone.”

Shadow didn’t know how to respond. If not for what had happened to Sonic, he would have been. He shifted uncomfortably, and then pulled Sonic closer to him. “I couldn’t leave you like this.”

Sonic opened his eyes, but his eyes stayed sad and fixed on Shadow’s shoulder. “So what you’re saying is… you would have left me if I wasn’t sick.”

Shadow kept his mouth shut. He didn’t know how to reassure Sonic. There was a part of him that longed to leave even now. Fifty years of thinking Maria and his sisters were dead… And they might not be. But it was only part of him. Another part of him couldn’t fathom not being here with Sonic—couldn’t imagine having gone to save his family if he didn’t have this moronic blue speedster by his side. And the last part of himself knew that he’d never had a plan. He’d reacted on instinct, emotion and need alone. Without a plan, he might lose his family a second time. Assuming his sisters had stood the test of time as he had, and that Maria’s cryo unit had already lasted this long, a few more days were a small price to pay to make sure he did this right.

Shadow leaned his head against Sonic and finally allowed his lips to part with a sigh. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasn’t… here, if that makes sense. It didn’t feel like anything else mattered except breaking through that dome and blasting off to the Ark. But I’m back now.” He paused, then gently touched Sonic’s chin and lifted it. Sonic let his head move, but kept his eyes down. “You brought me back.”

Sonic’s eyes flickered, like Sonic wanted to look at him and believe what he was saying, but didn’t want to feel the heartbreak if it was just pretty words.

Shadow tried harder. “You would have eventually, even if you hadn’t keeled over coughing.” Shadow shook his head fondly. “I’m sure you would have found something equally dramatic. Some sort of gooey romantic gesture, perhaps?”

Sonic’s eyes flickered again, this time meeting Shadow’s before darting back down. Whatever he gleaned in that glance seemed to be enough to give him a little faith. “It kinda sounds like you were having a, um…” He snapped his fingers gently, looking for the word. “What did Amy call it again, Sticks gets them if you take away her government monitoring equipment…” He held up a finger and smiled a little. “A dissociative episode.”

Shadow blinked. He wasn’t familiar with the term. “A what?”

“Where nothing feels real, and you’re not connecting with what’s happening around you.” Sonic rubbed the back of his neck and shot Shadow an unsure look. “Right?”

Shadow blinked again, surprised by how well that fit what he’d experienced. “Huh. Yes, that does sound right.”

Sonic gave a little nod and dropped his eyes again.

Shadow wanted him to stop doing that.

He squeezed Sonic gently. “But I’m back now,” he said again. “And it’s thanks to you. And I wouldn’t have gained anything by breaking through that barrier and trying to get to the Ark. I didn’t have a plan, and… Well…” He sighed again, feeling powerless. “I couldn’t have gotten to the Ark without a rocket anyway.” He grimaced and ran a hand through his quills. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Sonic looked up and met his eyes then. He searched them, slowly, like he was weighing the truth of Shadow’s words.

Shadow gave him as naked a look as he could. “Please, Sonic. Believe me when I say I’m here.” He took Sonic’s hand and pressed it over his heart, trying to transmit the strength of his feelings the way he had when they’d been saying their I-love-you’s. Why was this so hard when it had been so easy only a day before? Because now it was confession instead of realization? Because he had to convince Sonic anew? He gave Sonic’s hand an extra squeeze, for courage. “I meant what I said before her last log.”

Sonic’s eyes teared up and then overflowed as he closed them and kissed Shadow.

Shadow leaned into the kiss eagerly. He hadn’t realized how desperately he’d needed Sonic to believe him. He lanced his tongue against Sonic’s and deepened the kiss—but Sonic pulled back with a gasp and threw his hand over his mouth.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t be kissing you. What if you—” He tensed up and pushed Shadow back as he turned his head and started coughing.

Shadow kept his hands soothingly on Sonic, and held him until the coughing stopped.

Sonic heaved as much of a frustrated sigh as he was able to and shot Shadow an apologetic look. “Please tell me Maria’s weird chaos goo is why you’re not sick right now?”

Shadow nodded. “That or her own work, yours is as good a guess as mine.” He closed the distance and kissed Sonic again. “Point being, I’ll still be doing this.”

Sonic blushed and put his hands over his face. “You can’t just overwhelm a guy like this when he’s at like sixty-percent lung capacity.”

Shadow smiled and ran his hand adoringly up Sonic’s leg. “Well then, I’ll have to tell you about my genius plan to get you back to one hundred percent and destroy this virus for good.”

“What?” Sonic said, just as Shadow’s communicator dinged from his wrist. Sonic gave it a quizzical look. He pointed to it and looked back to Shadow, confusion written all over his face. “How long as you been wearing that?”

Shadow smiled wider and placed a kiss to Sonic’s forehead. “Don’t fret. Rest. I’ll tell you more later.”

Sonic gave him a suspicious look, but another coughing fit brought the weariness back to his eyes. “Alright.” He grabbed the blanket Shadow had brought him and covered himself with it as he rolled over. “But I’m holding you to that.”

“That’s my boy,” Shadow said, patting Sonic’s hip gently. “There’s water and medicine on the bedside table if you need it. Ping my communicator if you need anything else.”

Sonic shot him an affectionate look. “Thanks.”

Shadow didn’t realize his heart could swell to bursting from such a simple look. He stole another kiss before he left. “My pleasure.” He said it with conviction he didn’t know he’d had left in him.

* * *

Shadow set up shop at Sonic’s picnic table, hoping being on the beach and outside of the house would keep his voice from disturbing the other hedgehog too much. Then he brought up the app that Tails had sent him. It was simple enough. A button to broadcast, a button to record, a button to loop said recording while broadcasting.

It should be enough.

Shadow pressed the record and broadcast buttons. He may as well start broadcasting his message live the first time. It would get it out faster; and they didn’t have time to waste on silly things like word choice or perfectionism right now.

Maria hadn’t gotten a chance to edit her message either.

If she could save four lives with one message, then surely he could save one.

His holo-screen popped up, displaying himself instead of the person he was trying to connect with. He looked annoyed—but he supposed that made sense. It wasn’t every day that you tried to lure a thief to your doorstep in order to kill the disease ravaging the body of a loved one.

He glared at the camera a little harder, then started talking.

“Hello,” he started.

Cordial enough.

“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but I can only assume you’re listening since the rest of the team is currently searching the island for you.”

Heh. The team. Like they were his, and he theirs. Was he so a part of Sonic already that he thought to lay claim to Sonic’s friends as his own already?

“You’ve stolen seven very interesting rocks. I can’t know what your reasons are for taking them. Maybe you’re just a common jewel thief—or maybe you have some idea of what they really are.”

He paused.

“I know what they really are too.”

This was the part where he hoped the thief was hacking their visual feeds too, not just the audio. He snapped his fingers and teleported, leaving his communicator behind so it could catch his movements as he disappeared and reappeared all around the beach. He caught the communicator and replaced it on his wrist before it had fallen more than an inch through the air. He gave the camera an impassive look.

“My creator made me out of an alien substance that had the same properties as those gems. If you bring them to me, I can show you what else they’re capable of. And…”

This was the hard part of the message. Shadow had never liked begging.

“Without them, someone I care for might die.”

He didn’t know if he was talking about Sonic, Maria, or both. He just knew that everything he wanted hinged on getting these rocks back.

“I need them. Once they’ve served their purpose, I don’t care what happens to them.”

A bit of a lie. Shadow didn’t care what happened to the rocks after they saved Sonic and got him to the Ark, it was true—but he knew Maria and his idiot hero would care about what was done with them. He wouldn’t let whoever this bat was use them to hurt people.

“It’s up to you what happens next. You can try and escape the island with the whole force of the community against you—or you can bring them to me, and see what I can do.” He smirked at the screen. “If you found out enough about us to get the gems out from under our noses, you probably know about what happened in the alternate world as well; why Sonic and I are quarantined here. I can show you what we did with those rocks while we were there. I can let you study it, even. But without me, you’ll never see it for yourself.”

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to seem impassive and in control. “You decide.”

He clicked off the recording button and pressed loop as the sun finally set into the sea. It was a gamble, but it was a damn good one. She’d have to be monitoring their communications if she was still trying to get off the island—and she must be. Tails, Eggman, and Sticks would all have known if any kind of craft had left the island. She’d have to listen if she was going to evade their search.

Shadow only hoped that she listened to him.

He went back inside and navigated the shack in the dark, not wanting to wake Sonic with a light. He curled up against Sonic’s back, but was too alert to sleep. After an hour of listening to Sonic’s breathing wheeze and crackle, he left and went back outside to look at the stars. Every time he saw the Ark, he paused his recording and sent a new message.

“Have you made up your mind yet?”

“It’s too bad there were only reports of what Sonic and I did with those gems for you to read. You’ll never know what it looked like if you don’t bring them back.”

“I meant what I said about letting you keep them once we’re done with them.”

“If you care enough to steal them, you must have a good reason for it. Maybe we could help you too.”

Finally, he could barely make out the Ark or any of the stars due to the early dawn light.

A whole night, sending words into the void. With nothing to show for it.

Shadow looked at his app, still looping diligently away, sending all of the recordings he’d made that night in sequence, over and over again.

He stopped the loop.

He felt helpless.

What if she didn’t come?

His mind spiraled away from him, tracing the route where Sonic’s fever only got worse, and his coughing never stopped; where he never got better; where he recovered, but could never run again; where he stopped breathing entirely and left Shadow all alone once more.

He made one more recording to add to the others.

“Please,” he said, realizing he hadn’t actually used that word until now, and knowing he’d meant it more than any other time he’d ever said it in his life. “I can’t lose him too.”

He sent the message and clicked the loop back on, sending it out with the last of his hope.

Please be listening, he thought as he watched the sunlight creep over the trees and strike the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My power was out and we're in the middle of an ice storm, so I'm not sure if it'll go back out again, and because of that, I'M UPDATING EARLY!
> 
> Please enjoy this chapter and the next and have a very happy Valentine's and Sonic Movie Anniversary!
> 
> It's actually the anniversary of me becoming a Sonic fan too! =D


	6. Day 9: Treasure

A coughing fit summoned Shadow from the beach into the house.

He helped Sonic to sit up, passed him pills and water, held him as the blue hedgehog put them in his mouth and swallowed. Sonic looked ragged and tired, like he was the one who hadn’t gotten any sleep.

Shadow gently smoothed Sonic’s fur where it stuck up from hours of laying the wrong way against the pillow. “How do you feel?” It was a stupid question. He knew that. But it was important. He needed to know when it felt worse. When he needed to get more aggressive in finding the emeralds.

Sonic chuckled gently, but even that gentle gust of breath ended in a cough. “Like death warmed over. Everything hurts. Not even Eggman’s made me hurt this bad before.” He rasped a deep breath in and winced. “My back is a traitor, and even breathing hurts now.”

Shadow ran a hand over Sonic’s chest. What if the damage _was_ permanent?

“Don’t worry,” he said, for both of them. “Your friends are working on bringing us the chaos emeralds. Once we have them…”

Sonic smiled gently. “You’re gonna work a miracle, huh?” He hummed and butted his head against Shadow’s body. “Bet Maria would love to see it.”

Shadow tipped Sonic’s chin up and kissed him. He pushed breath gently from his lungs to Sonic’s, trying to give the other hedgehog the same breath of life Sonic had just given him with those words.

Sonic breathed a little deeper when they parted, looked a little more alert.

“If she was right about those stones and about me, then yes; as many miracles as I can manage.”

Sonic nuzzled his nose against Shadow’s. “Of course she was right,” he murmured. He fell a little to the side, like staying balanced and supporting himself was hard, even when just sitting in bed. Shadow guided him back against the pillows, but stayed close. Sonic brushed Shadow’s quills with his fingers and gave him an exhausted smile. “She made you, didn’t she?”

Shadow kissed Sonic and breathed into him again. Sonic clung to Shadow and took it in this time. Breath whooshed out of Sonic when they parted and he tried to inhale to the same depth, but couldn’t. He shuddered in Shadow’s arms as he coughed, vibrating in a way that had nothing to do with his speed.

Shadow hugged him when the coughing subsided. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable until the emeralds get here?”

“Could you… keep doing that breathing thing?” Sonic asked. “Maybe it’s weird, but it’s easier to breath when you help me right now.”

Shadow wasted no time in obliging, but made a mental note to relay that information to the team once he got Sonic back to sleep.

Maybe they could find, make, or pilfer a ventilator from somewhere.

* * *

The team wasn’t happy to hear how much trouble Sonic was in.

“I’ve been getting data from the medical monitoring equipment in his communicator,” Tails said, “and based on that and your observations, this is way more serious than I originally projected.”

The rest of the team stood around Tails. Eggman and his robots had their own side of the screen, but they didn’t look happy about the news either.

“I can provide a ventilator so it’s accessible if and when it comes to that,” Eggman said. The line lacked his usual showmanship. Shadow couldn’t think of another time he’d seen the doctor so serious. “I don’t have enough spare parts waiting in the wings to make enough for the island, though, so quarantine procedure is going to need to stay strict.”

He didn’t need to look at Shadow for the black hedgehog to take his meaning.

The entire team probably already knew he’d tried to break out again, that Sonic was the only reason he hadn’t.

Shadow nodded marginally, acknowledging the order. “We’ll be sure to stay put.”

Amy sighed, leaning on the console, her eyes still attached to Sonic’s vitals on Tails’ screen. “I just wish there was more we could _do_.” Her hands wrung uselessly over themselves.

Shadow regarded them coolly. Even though they all looked tired and unsettled, he still envied them. They had their freedom. They could chase the bat that had stolen his one shot at saving both of the people he loved.

“We’re going to need to get more aggressive,” he said finally.

Everyone gave him a baffled look.

“ _More_ aggressive?” Amy said. “And just what do you think we were doing all night, Mr. Anti-hero? Twiddling our thumbs and playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark?” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Not all of us can teleport, you know.”

Shadow blinked. He hadn’t realized that his comment might come off as dismissive of their efforts.

“Apologies, Rose. I only meant that Sonic is running out of time. And… that scares me.”

Amy’s glare instantly melted. “Shadow…”

Knuckles sniffled like he might cry and Sticks put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I just don’t know who I’d be without Sonic,” Knuckles whimpered. “What is a hero without his trusty sidekick?”

Tails gave Knuckles a look, but Sticks shook her head and Tails leaned his head in his hand and looked back at Shadow.

“If aggressive’s what you want, I can get you aggressive.”

All eyes shifted to Eggman. He was uncharacteristically serious.

“I was saving it for the next time I fought with Sonic, but there’s no point if he dies or is never well enough to face off against my robots again.” Eggman twirled his mustache agitatedly.

“But, sir!” Orbot objected. “You said project Omega was ‘volatile’ and ‘too clever’ to use in combat against Sonic.”

“Yeah!” Cubot piped up. “And that it might kill him too!”

Eggman waved off the robot’s complaints. “Listen, this bat thief isn’t my nemesis, I don’t have to keep her breathing to renew my character appearance deal for next season. For all we know, she’s a one off appearance.” Eggman gestured at Shadow. “Besides, aggressive is aggressive. Who cares so long as we manage to get the emeralds back?”

Shadow raised his eyebrows, somewhat impressed with Eggman’s resources and ruthlessness.

“We can get aggressive too.”

Eyes swiveled from one end of the room to the other and settled on Sticks. She still held a sniffling Knuckles, but she looked fierce despite it. “Knuckles is upset right now, but he’s been getting these weird feelings. I think there’s something about this bat, or something she has, that’s throwing off straaaaange viiiibes.” She twiddled her fingers in front of her as she said the last two words. “Knuckles can track her if we can just get him to hone in on this feeling.”

“Oh yeah?” Tails asked, his tone a little too sardonic for the kind, optimistic inventor Shadow had observed him to be. “And how are we gonna do that?”

Amy stepped in before Shadow could, slamming her hand down on the console counter and making everyone jump. “We’re all here because Sonic needs us. If anything can make Knuckles focus and Eggman proffer up useful robots, it’s that none of us are prepared to lose our idiotic blue disaster.”

“Exactly.”

Everyone looked back to Shadow, some of them more shocked than others.

Amy’s eyes said she understood. So did Knuckles’. And to a strange extent, Eggman’s. Sticks was resolute; she’d never needed to know Shadow was in love with Sonic to work with him. She didn’t trust anyone anyway, and the trust she had was based on intuition, which hadn’t seemed to steer her wrong so far, in the grand scheme of things. It was Tails that looked like he’d needed to hear it most.

He looked uncertain, scared—the same way Sonic had looked at the start of all this, when believing something was almost as painful as cutting off the possibility of thing entirely.

“This is about him for you too?” Tails pressed. “You’re not just after the chaos emeralds? Or getting out of domepocalypse?”

Shadow opened his mouth and then closed it again. Tails had a right to ask. He didn’t know how things had changed—how Shadow had changed. He shook his head. “No. The emeralds, my freedom… Those things are meaningless if I lose Sonic now.”

The last bits of hesitation in Tails broke like the remnants of a dam during a flood. Tails closed his eyes to keep them from flowing over. “Okay.” He took a deep breath, like he was pulling his feelings back behind the gates of his façade. “We’ve got a couple ideas, some good tools. What’s our plan?”

Shadow talked for a while. He told them everything about his conception. About Maria. About what he was, and what he thought he could do. By the end, they all seemed to understand the importance of getting the emeralds back.

Shadow watched as the team broke the problem down and prioritized. Sticks and Knuckles were on tracking duty, with Amy assisting to keep distractions out of their path. Tails and Eggman were on corralling duty. Between their vehicles and project Omega, they could make sure their thief never got off the island. Block off all the exits, and they were bound to catch her eventually, even if Knuckles and Sticks couldn’t find her first.

And Shadow. Well… He had to keep waiting. He was communications by default. He’d be listening, and playing nurse to the blue idiot they all loved.

Before the team signed off to go their separate ways, Tails gave Shadow an unexpectedly fond look. “Thanks, Shadow. We couldn’t have done this without you.”

The team, and even Eggman, all nodded in agreement. A small glowing feeling—an echo of the one Shadow had first felt with Sonic—rose up through Shadow’s chest.

“The same to all of you,” he said.

He signed off before he could embarrass himself further.

The sound of the waves counted the seconds of the silence after he’d hung up.

Things were too quiet and still without Sonic and his friends.

Shadow hated that there was so little he could do. That all he could do was sit and wait and listen.

The waves kept ticking by.

The sun started to sink down from its apex.

Sonic woke up again and ate some soup Shadow made. They watched reruns of shows that made Sonic laugh—a hoarse mockery of what he sounded like before this sickness had made its home in his lungs. Shadow breathed for him again, lost himself in the contact of it, and kissed Sonic back into easy enough breathing that he slept again as the sun set over the ocean.

Shadow lay next to Sonic in the dark, listening to him breathe. Worry enveloped his mind like a dark cloud, inching closer with every passing hour and eating at Shadow’s mind.

Shadow’s communicator beeped, and he went outside to answer it. He supposed it was about time for a report from someone.

“Shadow here,” he answered.

“Alright, you.”

Shadow cocked his head as nothing but a black screen and unfamiliar voice greeted him.

“I’ve listened to your broadcast, I’ve verified your light show against those logs you mentioned, and I even saw you spill your guts this morning.” The speaker stepped out from her dark hiding place, and a sliver of light cut across the white fur of her face, giving her large sensitive ears an almost ethereal glow.

No wonder she wrapped herself up in black and purple when she’d stolen the emeralds. White fur like that would stand out anywhere.

Shadow leaned back against the picnic table, something inside of him finally relaxing now that he had her on the line.

“And?” he said.

“And it seems like you’re telling the truth.” She put her hand on her hip and flicked the fingers of her other hand through the air nonchalantly. “And, what can I say, I’m a bit of a bleeding heart. I’ll help you save your boy.”

Shadow nodded, but didn’t let himself celebrate. Her stance, her wording… There was something about it that made him feel like she was still very much in control of this encounter. “I expect you have some sort of stipulation given the active way you phrase that.”

The bat smirked and turned seductive, clever eyes on him. The look reminded him of Sonic when he was after something.

“Glad to see you’re just as clever as you are in love.”

Shadow’s heart fluttered unbidden. It made his heart quake to remember the truth of those words. He’d thought he’d been gutted of such feelings when he’d lost Maria, and now his heart was so full of love and hope, it overwhelmed him. It made him feel alive, and fragile; so much potential, both to cherish and to lose.

“What is it?” Shadow asked.

The bat’s smile grew. She hopped up onto a nearby tree branch and arranged her arms and legs across herself elegantly. “And here I half expected you to tell me whatever it was I could have it.”

Shadow narrowed his eyes. “I’m not so stupid as to agree to things I haven’t examined.”

The bat nodded, as if he’d passed some sort of test. “Then I believe you even more.”

Shadow was taken aback. “Why?”

The bat leaned her head into one of her hands. “People who are lying and laying traps don’t take the time to go over the terms of an agreement.”

Shadow hadn’t considered that.

But the bat’s smile grew and she clasped her hands together excitedly. “But lucky for you, this isn’t poker, and your bullheaded honesty makes it easier to do business.”

Shadow’s heart fell. “Is that all this is for you? Business?”

The bat’s eyes turned steely. “Everything is business at the end of the day.” She fished a compact out of the folds of her outfit and checked her face. “But, if you must know, no. This is something personal.”

Shadow had had enough. “Name it.”

The bat closed her compact and gave him a look that said not to rush her. She tucked the tool away and recrossed her legs, making him wait as she got comfortable.

“I know you know about the chaos emeralds, but what do you know of the master emerald?”

Shadow ran back through everything he’d learned in the last few days. “I know that it’s supposed to be able to control the chaos emeralds. Boost them or render them useless.”

The bat nodded.

“And what do you know of the people who guarded that stone?”

Shadow blinked.

“…Nothing.”

The bat nodded again, looking somewhat disappointed. “That makes it a little harder. I’ll call you back once I’ve found a place I can tell this story uninterrupted.”

She hung up before Shadow could stop her.

Shadow felt as disconnected from his body as the call was—and so he went swimming.

He needed something to do. Sonic’s words about dissociative episodes passed through his mind as the cold water broke over Shadow and pulled him back to himself. He couldn’t take another moment of sitting around waiting for something to happen. He would have gone to the punching bag, but he didn’t want to wake Sonic. He would have gone skating but he and Sonic had already worn the circumference of the dome down into a flattened hard track, and skating on it just made him notice the lack of blue blur next to him. He didn’t want to kill any of the trees by accidentally punching or kicking through the trunks. But the cold of the water and the force of the ocean against him was enough to keep him focused and grounded. So swimming it was.

The added bonus of the activity, no one could hear him underwater. He could scream, he could cry, and it wouldn’t even make Sonic’s ears twitch.

He swam until he felt the weight of his own limbs and salt stung his eyes and throat. He crawled out of the waves, and rolled onto his back on the wet sand. His power inhibitors jangled against his wrist and ankles, feeling more like bangles than usual without the extra girth of his gauntlets and rocket skates to keep them in place.

He’d never thought of them as shackles before, but he supposed the past two weeks had been a surprising array of firsts. First time to fight a version of yourself gone horribly wrong. First time resonating with a set of rocks you hadn’t known had inspired your existence. First time finding out you’d been wrong about the most important day of your life for over fifty years. First time falling in love with your idiot rival…

First time resenting his powers for not being enough to eradicate a virus.

Even unchained, he just had to sit here and wait, hoping he wouldn’t have to use the ventilator Eggman had sent and that a thief would decide to call him back.

He looked for the Ark, but only saw the moon, hovering just above the trees on the edge of the island.

Something flitted across it, and then fell back into the forest canopy.

Shadow blinked and squinted.

The shadow repeated its leap and fall. It was like something was flying towards him, but needed to check their trajectory every now and again. As it got closer, it solidified; two jagged bat wings and two large, sensitive ears, as white as the moon.

Shadow’s eyes widened.

Seemed he wouldn’t be getting a call back, exactly.

He wasn’t sure if this was better or worse.

He supposed if negotiations went south, he could always alert the team to her location.

In a way, perhaps he should take her coming to him as an act of good faith—but it felt too soon to tell.

He scooped himself of up off the sand and teleported through the shower. By the time the bat arrived, he’d replaced his skates and gauntlets. He sat in the middle of the sand, cushioned by a blanket, cross-legged and clearly waiting for her.

She winked at him and tipped him a little two fingered salute as she descended gently from the tree line with her wings. She did a lazy, graceful loop and landed on the top of the dome.

No wonder the team kept losing her. Only two of them could fly, and she clearly knew what she was doing with those wings.

She stretched and then lay down belly first on the most level part of the dome. She kicked her legs gently behind her, like this was a sleepover and not the most important call of Shadow’s life. Then Shadow’s communicator rang.

He picked up instantly, his eyes fixed on the bat above him.

“Good to see you found a safe place to tell your story from,” he said.

She smiled at him through the force-field.

“It might not have taken so long if someone hadn’t decided to send a killer robot after me.”

“You weren’t responding to my broadcasts.”

“I had to verify everything you were telling me was true.”

They held each other’s eyes until Shadow relented. “I suppose I can understand only wanting to act on confirmed intel.”

She smiled a little more kindly than she had before. “Thank you.”

Shadow shrugged. “Speaking of intel, this is our second conversation, and you still haven’t told me your name.”

The bat nodded. “You’re right. You’ve been rather upfront, and I haven’t returned the favor.” She brushed her short hair back and gave him a seductive look. “You may call me Rouge.”

“Pleased to formally make your acquaintance.”

“And I yours, Shadow.” She paused and then clapped her hands together. “Now, since you’ve been so honest with me, allow me to set the scene of my story and lay the groundwork of our agreement.”

She pulled a chain up and out of her clothes. A vibrantly green emerald that was much smaller than the others was held by a wire clasp on the end.

“This is the Master Emerald,” she said.

“Tch,” Shadow said, disbelief bleeding his response. “The Master Emerald was supposed to be huge. How could that—”

Rouge closed her eyes and concentrated. The emerald swelled up until it was nearly the size of her, the wire clasp forgotton in the hand she used to keep the emerald balanced on top of the dome with her. The next instant, it was small again, safe again in the confines of its clasp.

“You see you’re not the only one with secrets,” she mused, tucking the stone back into the folds of her clothing.

“How do you have that?” Shadow asked. It didn’t make sense. There weren’t any chaos emeralds in their world, or the stones falling through into theirs would have set off a universe ending paradox. How could the Master Emerald still exist in a dimension that didn’t have Chaos Emeralds?

Rouge lifted a shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go very far back in my family history to find the answer to that, and I’m sure the version of the story I have is somewhat distorted by time. But, the way it goes in my family is that we are the replacement guardians, and the watchers for the seven chaos that are said to serve the Master Emerald.”

“So you’re a jewel thief.”

Rouge smirked and mimicked a bow from her lounging posture. “A thief, a spy, an informant, one woman trying to keep the world from falling into chaos by looking after eight silly stones; however you wish to phrase it.”

“And that’s why you came for the emeralds.”

Rouge nodded. “The Master Emerald reacted a few days short of two weeks ago. I’ve confirmed that’s when you and your little blue hero fell back into our reality with the new chaos emeralds.” She sighed. “It’s funny how finding out that their existence really means that the original ones of our reality were lost somehow.” She turned her eyes back onto Shadow. “But then, maybe your little scientist found a way to preserve them in a different form after all, wouldn’t you say?”

Shadow glared at her and lay back against the sand to keep from straining his neck looking at her. “Get to the point; you said you’re the replacement guardian and asked me about the original ones when you said you had demands. How do I play into this picture?”

“You don’t.”

“Then how can I help with your demands?”

Rouge bit her lip prettily and looked back towards the forest.

Shadow flicked his eyes over, but saw nothing.

“You have an echidna on the band of pursuers you put together, yes?”

Shadow nodded. “Yes, Knuckles. Dumb as a pile of bricks and strength like a bulldozer. What’s he got to do with the Master Emerald?”

Rouge drew a circle on the dome with her finger. “He’s been able to track me ever since I got here.”

“Yes. And?”

“Well, from the stories my family has handed down, the Echidnas were the original keepers of the Master Emerald.” She paused and tipped her head conspiratorially. “And the only ones able to unlock the full powers of the stone as well.”

Shadow raised his eyebrows, well and truly surprised.

“So the conspiracy theorist was right and the great red idiot has a use after all,” he muttered to himself.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.” Shadow waved his musing away with a dismissive hand. “Just personal reflection.” He fixed Rouge with a calculating gaze. “I take it your conditions have something to do with our resident echidna, then.”

Rouge kicked herself elegantly onto her side, lounging as though she were in the middle of a photoshoot instead of negotiations. She winked. “Bingo.”

Shadow put a hand to his temple and rubbed. “Well… I don’t know what I can promise you out of him. He’s rather bullheaded.”

Rouge smiled. “I’ve gathered as much from the way he’s been chasing me around the island the last two days.”

Shadow chuckled gently. He’d been there before. “I can relate.”

Rouge’s eyes shifted over him with interest. She examined the immaculate tips of her gloved hand as though her next question was of no real importance. “I take it from that and the way the fox put you on the spot earlier, you’re a recent addition to the team, then?”

Shadow laughed again despite himself. The absurdity of the last two weeks wasn’t lost on him. From rivals and sometimes-antagonists to reluctant allies to lovers and running with Sonic’s friends wasn’t exactly where he’d thought he’d be in that time frame.

“You could say that.”

Rouge nodded. “Then you’re perfect. You won’t have any biases.”

“Perfect for what?”

“The echidna.”

“Knuckles,” Shadow provided.

“Knuckles the Echidna,” Rouge amended. “What’s he like?”

“Stupid,” Shadow answered. “Herculeanly strong.” He paused, knowing that his exhaustion and automatic answers probably weren’t what she was looking for. She wanted to know the morality of his character. When it came to Knuckles, there was a one word way to sum that up. “Kind.”

Rouge nodded, crossing her legs thoughtfully. “And you think he could be trusted with the Master Emerald?”

Shadow stretched his neck, going from one shoulder to the other. “I don’t think I’m necessarily the best judge of that given that I’ve tried to end of all of existence in despair myself.”

Rouge smirked. “Don’t think I didn’t know that before I asked you.” She hummed an alluring laugh and stretched her arms and wings, as though she’d put them through a lot of work in the last few days. “That Eggman, Fox, and Badger keep really, really good records between the three of them.”

“Heh. I suppose they do.” Shadow was quiet a moment. “Alright. Since you know who’s opinion you’re asking; I don’t think there’s really a better person for the job, aside from perhaps you. No one else knows what it is, what it can do. No one else knows how to handle it. You can teach him those things, and he’s already proven he’s got an uncanny sense of where it is and some idea of its importance. Plus, he’s got the strength to keep people who might abuse it from taking it.”

Rouge rolled her eyes. “If strength was what it took, I wouldn’t still be holding it.”

Shadow nodded, acknowledging her point. “Allow me to rephrase; he has the support to keep from failing to guard it.”

“You mean his friends?”

Shadow nodded and crossed one arm over himself, disliking how sappy it made him sound to say Knuckles most qualifying recommendation was that he wasn’t alone.

Then again, that had always been what had made him strong too, wasn’t it?

“Yes.” He tucked his hand behind his head and resettled on the blanket to look Rouge in the eyes more easily. “He won’t have to guard it alone.”

Somehow, that seemed to be what Rouge was looking for. She relaxed back onto the dome, letting it support her, and gave him a tired, satisfied smile. “Alright then.”

It sounded like acquiescence, but Shadow was too scared to let himself believe it until she said it outright. “You’ve asked me a lot of questions, but haven’t laid out any conditions. Was it just information, or is there more?”

Rouge nodded. “Right, of course. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. It’s just… I never thought my role as keeper of the Master Emerald would end like this. It’s exciting, and a relief, and kind of sad, you know?”

He regarded her quietly, and then nodded, breaking his gaze away from her curtly. He felt like this bat saw into him too easily. “I do.”

“Anyway, based on what you’ve told me, my conditions are these.”

He looked back up quickly.

Rouge’s expression was nothing but kind. “I’ll return the chaos emeralds, and even give the echidna the Master Emerald to help you boost their power—but in return, I want in.”

“In?”

Rouge gestured up to the night sky. Shadow looked up, just as the Ark peaked into view.

How had she so perfectly predicted the timing?

“After you’re done here, you’re going up there, right?”

He jerked his eyes back to her, too surprised to hide his alarm.

She gave him a smug smile. “What? You expected me not to watch Maria’s logs?”

“What do you want with the Ark?”

“I want what you want; there’s a girl up there that I can’t help relating to a little, and now that I’m passing on the Master Emerald, I think I’d rather like to put these skills of mine to use for her.” Rouge looked up into space and dropped the effortless façade for a moment. She looked tired. “There are a lot of men out there, running countries and people’s lives, who don’t give a shit about what actually happens to people.” She was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath in and brushed her hair back—the façade back in place. “I think I’d like to put a player like her back on the board—and see what you and your partner can do with the chaos emeralds up close and personal.”

Shadow stared at her.

His first impulse was to say no. He’d been alone for so long, denying connections felt automatic and safe. Loneliness and independence… They were a known burden. Less to lose if he didn’t let people in.

There were reasons he could use to justify it—he’d only known Rouge two days; she knew more about him than he did of her; she could be lying to try and get at Maria, his siblings, and her research the way Maria had warned in her last log…

Sonic wouldn’t hesitate. His friends were a testament to that. They’d all come to him as strangers, people that could hurt him, burden him, or stab him in the back.

But Sonic.

He always believed the best of everyone.

Shadow wished he could be like that.

“…Okay.”

Rouge lit up. “Really?”

“Yes. Okay. I agree to your conditions.”

Rouge’s smile was almost as dazzling as the stars. It was so different from her closed-lipped mysterious one. “I didn’t expect you to say yes so easily, but it certainly saves us time.” She pulled a satchel from her waist and dumped it out on top of the dome. Seven round cut emeralds of different hues clinked out onto the surface.

“You call your friends and get them over here. I’ll smuggle these into the fox’s delivery system right away.” She scooped the emeralds back up and made to leap into the air, but backpedaled at the last second. “Oh, and maybe tell them I’m on your side now, okay? I don’t want to have to delay your poor boy’s resurrection any more than we have to.”

Her kindness cut through Shadow in an unexpected way.

He placed a quiet hand over his heart, and nodded gently, unable to meet her eyes. He felt like if he looked at her now, he might cry—and he didn’t want to add to the vulnerability he’d already shown her. This was new, and he had limits. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“You got it. Looking forward to our partnership.” Then she cut the line, and took off into the darkness.

Shadow watched her fly away and realized something.

He was looking forward to it too.


	7. Day 10: Love and Miracles

Shadow shot off a text to the team, not trusting himself to keep emotion out of his voice or off his face. It was the best he could do. Then he switched his communicator to Do Not Disturb. They might call, but there was only one person Shadow wanted to talk to just then.

Shadow went back inside and lay next to Sonic. The blue hedgehog’s breathing was louder than it had been when he’d left. Wheezier. With more pops and cracks, even though his coughs were still fairly dry.

Shadow didn’t want to wake him, but he couldn’t say the things he wanted to say in front of the others.

He placed his hand on Sonic’s and said the other hedgehog’s name gently. “Sonic.”

Sonic mumbled and rolled towards Shadow, then opened his eyes blearily. He smiled when his eyes focused on Shadow in the dim light. The moon was setting, and it lit up the interior of the house.

“Hey, Shadz,” Sonic said weakly. He nuzzled closer, then turned his head and as another coughing fit seized him. Shadow grimaced and held Sonic until the coughing subsided. Sonic cleared his throat and turned back. “Sorry about that.” He pressed his forehead against Shadow’s and took a few gentle breaths. “You okay, buddy? You don’t usually wake me up in the middle of the night if you don’t have a good reason.” Sonic winked and a little part of Shadow melted.

He closed his eyes and held Sonic to him more fiercely. “I got the Chaos Emeralds back.”

Sonic stroked Shadow’s quills. “That’s great, Shadz.”

Shadow hiccupped. It was. He didn’t know why it didn’t feel safe to let out his breath. He just wanted to keep holding Sonic. If he didn’t let go, if the sun never rose, none of this could wrong.

He couldn’t keep it all pent up inside himself anymore.

“What if it all goes wrong anyway?” He ducked his head, embarrassed by the weakness of his thoughts. “What if I can’t use them, and I lose you? What if I’m not what Maria wanted me to be and I can’t save her or my sisters either?” He hiccupped again, a cross between a sob and choking. He didn’t want Sonic to see his tears. Sonic was sick. Shadow was supposed to be strong for him, to stay strong until this crisis was averted and they could go back to the relative safety of existing without immediate threat.

“Hey.”

Shadow opened his eyes reluctantly as Sonic tipped his chip up. Sonic’s expression was serious.

“Just because it’s all gone wrong before, doesn’t mean it’s going to go wrong again.”

Shadow sucked in a short breath and bit his lip to hold himself together.

Sonic swiped his thumb over Shadow’s cheek like the he was already crying even though Shadow knew none of the water in his eyes had spilled over.

“And even if it does, we’ll find another way. It doesn’t all depend on you. We’ve got some of the greatest minds and bravest hearts on our side. We’ll find a way through this. And if Maria’s anything like how she was in those tapes, she’s not gonna go dying on you any more than I am, Shadz.”

Shadow let out his breath with something that sounded like laughter and crying. “But what if it _is_ all on me?”

Sonic shook his head. “It’s not.” He stroked Shadow’s cheek again. “It’s not. You’ve already been so strong. It’s okay to not be right now.”

The damn in Shadow broke and he cried against Sonic’s chest.

Sonic cooed and held him. “It’s gonna be okay, Shadz. We’ll do this together. I promise. It’ll be okay. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Finally, Shadow had cried himself out. He reached past Sonic and grabbed one of the tissues from the box on the bedside table to blow his nose. Then he settled back down, still sniffing a little, his nose clogged from the heavy crying.

Sonic cuddled him, nuzzling Shadow as they fit around each other again and settled back into bed.

Shadow took a few breaths and wiped his face again. “I forgot to tell you; the bat had the Master Emerald too—the one Maria modeled my power inhibitors off of.”

“Yeah?”

Shadow nodded. “Turns out the Echidnas were the original keepers, and the people who can access its full power. She’s gonna help Knuckles do it so he can help boost the power of the other emeralds.”

Sonic smiled and kissed Shadow’s forehead. “Look at you, making friends.”

Shadow didn’t argue. Rouge felt like a friend, despite all his fear.

He bumped his head against Sonic’s jaw. “You really think I’ll be able to pull this off?”

Sonic laughed—gently, so as not to aggravate his cough. “Shadz, I’ve never had a doubt.” He turned and scooched down the bed so they were nose to nose and looking into each other’s eyes. “With you by my side, I know that together we can overcome all the odds.” He scoffed. “If the way we pummeled that other you is any measure, it's never as hard as it seems.” He kissed Shadow gently. “I think the secret is sharing our dreams. And not giving up. Not ever. We’re stronger together than we could ever be on our own.” He nuzzled Shadow’s nose, his eyes closed, his breathing changing to that of sleep. “You bring out the best in me, Shadz. Like my friends, like Maria did for you... ‘S so much better than being alone.” A gentle snore slipped from Sonic’s mouth.

“Heh.” Shadow kissed Sonic’s cheek. “Got a lot of nerve, falling asleep on me in the middle of a pep talk.” He gathered the blankets more securely around Sonic and gently extracted himself from Sonic’s embrace. “…Just because you’re right.”

He couldn’t argue. He did feel better.

Maybe they weren’t out of the woods yet, but it meant a lot that Sonic still meant to do everything in his power to make sure things turned out okay too—and that he trusted his friends to do the same.

Once again, Shadow was going up against impossible odds—but Sonic was right; this time, it was better not being alone.

Shadow wiped his face again and looked outside.

The sky outside was getting light. Shadow checked his communicator to find he had fifteen missed calls and about twice as many text messages. He realized he must have missed the emeralds delivery in the throes of his crying. He went to the delivery shoot and opened it. The seven emeralds winked at him in the soft morning light.

He pulled them out and held them in his hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated. The gems were warm—not in temperature, but in feeling. It reminded Shadow of Maria’s smiles, Lizzie’s overly powerful high fives, Shelly’s thoughts after a particularly good mug of hot chocolate; Sonic’s embrace. He looked to the emeralds, and they looked back at him with everything he wanted to protect. Everything that had ever made him feel safe and like he wasn’t alone.

The emeralds spiraled in a circle around him, just as they had done for his double in the alternate dimension.

He supposed that meant they were working, then. At least to an extent… His fur was still black, not gold like when he and Sonic had wrestled control of the rocks away from his deranged double.

It was funny; back then, he had assumed the stones were responding to Sonic. Maybe it had been both of them all along.

He pivoted and moved towards the door to deal with all his missed notifications outside so he wouldn’t disturb Sonic. The emeralds followed him as he moved. He scrolled through his notifications as he stepped outside, trying to parse who all had tried to contact him while he’d been with Sonic. He stopped dead in his tracks on the porch when he saw what was waiting for him outside. He shook his head and lowered the communicator to his side. He wouldn’t need it to get back to anyone.

Everyone was gathered just outside the dome, Rouge shouting and darting from tree to tree as Tails, Eggman, and a black and red robot Shadow hadn’t seen before tried to chase her down. Knuckles was even mirroring her movements from the ground. Amy and Sticks cut off her other possible exits.

Shadow descended the stairs and walked towards them. Slowly, eyes caught on him. Sticks was the first to notice. She nearly ripped Knuckles off his feet when she jumped onto his shoulders and turned his head to look. Tails dropped out of the sky and peered from his perch in a tree, which caught Eggman’s attention and made him stop the eggmobile to see what was happening. Amy halted her assault when Eggman stopped pursuing, apparently taken off-guard by that. Only the robot continued to pursue Rouge, and she was losing ground.

“Call off your robot, Doctor,” Shadow said as he reached the edge of the dome.

“So she was telling the truth,” Amy said gently, a hand over her mouth.

“Yes!” Rouge shouted. The robot had caught her and was holding her with both hands around her middle. “She was! Now don’t you all feel embarrassed!”

Sticks and Knuckles made the same face and exchanged a glance that said they absolutely weren’t and would hunt her down all over again.

Tails descended from his tree and approached the dome, his eyes going over every inch of Shadow and the emeralds that spiraled around him, circling through the air of their own volition. “How are they doing that?” Tails asked gently. From the way he said it, Shadow assumed the question was mostly for his own benefit.

“Doctor,” Shadow said again.

Eggman looked up from the stones, squinted at Shadow as if he were processing, and then stood bolt upright and looked at his robot and the bat that was currently trying to pound its head in with her fist. “Omega, release the thief.”

The robot shook its head. “That would be counter-productive. A thief caught cannot steal again. A thief released, can.”

Eggman sighed and pulled a hand exhaustedly over his face. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to use you on Sonic…”

Rouge paused. “Huh. A tincan with some brains, huh.” She put her devilish smile back in place. “A thief might steal again if released, but that can be exceptionally helpful when she’s on your side. Especially if she has other resources at her disposal. What if I told you I could get you out from under that ovoid-obstacle over there and helping out a real researcher?”

Omega seemed to hesitate. “Go on.”

Rouge winked, then threw her free hand out towards Shadow. “See that guy over there? He’s the product of Maria Robotnik’s research. And he’s gonna go save her as soon as we’ve gotten the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald to charge up and splatter the virus that’s ravaging his poor loverboy’s body.”

Amy went completely red from head to toe. Knuckles looked confused.

“I thought it was just him and Sonic in there,” Knuckles whispered to Sticks.

Even Sticks rolled her eyes, though she did pat Knuckles good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Sonic _is_ the loverboy, Knuckles.”

Knuckles’ eyes went wide. “I didn’t know either of them had the emotional range for that.”

“Eh, when the script calls for it,” Sticks shrugged.

“Writers must be going for drama this season,” Eggman muttered.

“I fail to see how that lifeform differs from the rest,” Omega said.

“He was created.” Rouge walked her fingers up Omega’s casing. “Just. Like. You.”

Omega seemed to hesitate again.

Rouge went on. “Except his creator wasn’t a goof-playing villain. His creator actually cared about making things better—you know, like you do, by catching thieves—though I would add that some thieves steal for perfectly legitimate reasons.”

Omega swiveled his gaze to Shadow. “You were created?”

Shadow nodded.

“What for?”

Shadow swallowed. He’d been grappling with that question for fifty years now. “To protect people. Keep them safe. Make them better.”

Omega made a few computing noises. Then he released Rouge. “This deal is agreeable. I will aid the ultimate life form and his companions.”

Rouge scoffed and brushed herself off. “I haven’t made a whole career out of espionage and gem hunting to be demoted to an ‘and co’ status,” she grumbled. She perched herself on the edge of the palm tree and crossed her legs with an air of dramatic offense.

“I’ll make sure your name is there when we make the team T-shirts,” Shadow said dryly.

Omega laughed, and Rouge smirked at him affectionately. Everyone else seemed too stunned by the joke to have much of a reaction.

Shadow nodded to Rouge’s chest. “Have you explained about the Master Emerald?”

Rouge brushed her hair behind her shoulders indignantly and pulled the emerald from beneath her clothes by its chain. “Hardly. The entire team was convinced I’d somehow bewitched you into telling them I was on your side so I could extort them. For what, I’m not sure, as I’m pretty sure I already took everything of value they had.”

“You could be part of the government conspiracies!” Sticks accused. “Or an alien.”

Rouge gave her a smile that was both absolutely baffled and somehow saccharinely condescending. “Oh, honey. _He’s_ the alien,” she said jerking her thumb at Shadow. She looked around at the group and their blank stares. “Seriously, haven’t any of the rest of you watched those logs? It’s like you have no idea…”

“We were too busy running around the island after you!” Amy cried.

Rouge put her hand over her mouth and gave Amy a bashful look. “Oops, silly me.” She brushed her hair back again and balanced the tiny Master Emerald on the tip of her pinky finger. “Shadow was probably made with the remnants of our dimension’s chaos emeralds and the DNA of whatever alien took them from us eons ago. That’s why he can commune with the emeralds so easily. The Master Emerald, though, wasn’t with the seven chaos emeralds when they disappeared, and my family has watched over it and sought the chaos emeralds for as long as we’ve had recorded history. Though…” Her gaze descended to Knuckles.

Knuckles hadn’t moved since Rouge had taken the Master Emerald out from under her clothes. His eyes were fixed on it intently. His eyes followed the emerald wherever Rouge moved it. A wrinkle furrowed his brow, as though he couldn’t place something or was having too complex a thought.

Rouge tipped her hand towards Knuckles, and the Emerald danced nearer to him.

Knuckles seemed to shift onto the balls of his feet, as if he would do anything to be closer to the stone.

“My family has been seeking the true guardian of the Master Emerald for just as long. It’s said they can unlock it’s true power.” Rouge’s eyes smouldered as she watched Knuckles react to the emerald. “And I’d very much like to see that.”

Amy looked back and forth between Rouge and Knuckles, who clearly only had eyes for each other and the Master Emerald.

“Hold on,” Amy said. “You’re not talking about our Knuckles, are you? Strong as my hammer, but dumb as rocks?”

“Oh, I’m sure he knows plenty about rocks,” Rouge said, moving the emerald in different directions. Knuckles shifted to follow and she placed a hand over her mouth to hide a laugh.

Amy sighed and Sticks raised an eyebrow. Eggman looked annoyed, while Omega was trying to copy Rouge’s cross-legged posture on the palm tree next to her.

Tails was the only one who looked excited. “You mean Knuckles can make that emerald do what these other ones are doing with Shadow?!”

Rouge lifted her eyes from Knuckles and smirked at the fox. “Even better; this emerald can control the other seven. And I can teach your echidna how.”

Amy shook her head and locked sympathetic eyes with Shadow. “Gosh, I really wish we’d taken your text seriously when we got it.”

Shadow gave her a calculating look. “Why didn’t you?”

Amy shrugged exaggeratedly. “It was just so unlike you. Random almost gushy message about how it was all gonna be okay, all we had to do was trust the bat we’d been chasing for two days, and then radio silence for hours?”

“We thought she’d killed you and commandeered your communicator,” Sticks provided.

“And if she _had_ had any contact with you, we had to make sure she wasn’t spreading the virus Sonic’s got all around the island,” Amy said.

Sticks nodded sagely. “Containment is a tricky business. Ask the people at Area 51.”

Knuckles surprised everyone by being the next to speak.

“You…” He swallowed, lifting his eyes from the Master Emerald and focusing on Rouge as he tried to get his dry throat working again. “You can really teach me how to use it?” His voice was hesitant and soft—nothing like the Knuckles they knew. It was like there was a strange hope mixed into his tone, like something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but suddenly knew he’d been missing all his life and had been offered the chance to reclaim.

All eyes had swung to Knuckles when he started talking, but Rouge’s hung on him the heaviest. She smiled with more promise than decent—so precisely the correct amount for Rouge—and leaned down lower from her tree. “I’ll teach you anything you want, you knuckle-head.”

Shadow raised his eyebrows marginally at the way she purred. He probably wasn’t the only one who noticed Knuckle’s breath catch in his throat.

Time to step in.

Shadow cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself. “Now that we’ve all been introduced and pleasantries have been made, perhaps it’s time to move forward with the plan.”

Rouge didn’t wait for an answer from the team. She fluttered down from her tree, took Knuckles by the hand, and led him away down the beach. Omega followed, much to Eggman’s chagrin—but after he scowled and sighed, the doctor remained within brainstorming distance of Tails. Perhaps they had been more of an asset to each other than Sonic and Shadow had theorized in their lazy-day supposings about what was happening in the outside world without them.

“Right, your plan.” Amy put the head of her hammer on the ground and leaned on it gracefully. “How can we help?”

Sticks yawned and made herself comfortable in the sand of the beach, making her feelings about how they could help known.

Tails frowned gently, his eyes watching the emeralds as they spun around Shadow.

“You got them to respond to you, but you still need to figure out how to make them work, right?” Tails suggested.

“What’s there to figure out?” Eggman asked. “They’re a weapon, right? Just zap the virus and have done.”

Tails shook his head. “A virus reprograms cells within the body to manufacture itself. Shadow needs to know what he’s doing or he might hurt Sonic…”

Amy’s head snapped towards Tails. “What?”

Tails gave her an apologetic look. “It’s just a theory.”

Eggman clapped his hands together, startling Sticks out of her nap. She eyed him as he rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Sounds like a wonderful way to run some more experiments. Uh, er, don’t you think, Tails?”

The ground shook as Amy twirled her hammer and put the head back down on the earth with a thud. Eggman and Tails froze, and Sticks opened an eye and yawned before snuggling back down into her nap.

“Both of you are going to back off and let me work with Shadow,” Amy said quietly. “If these emeralds are about feelings and control, then meditation and reflection are going to be what keep Shadow from killing Sonic by accident.” She raised her hammer and pointed at the tree line. “You can stand over there and watch, if it’ll help with your little experiments.”

Eggman scowled, but the expression evaporated as Tails raised his hands in surrender and marched towards the tree line.

“Wha—but!!” Eggman spluttered, giving Tails an incredulous look and waving his hands at Amy. “Aren’t you gonna stop her?”

“You’ve been friends with Amy long enough now, Eggman,” Tails responded. “You should know when not to fight her.” Tails put his back against a tree and brought out his datapad. “We can make observations and collect data from the sensors in Domepocalypse without interrupting Amy’s training.”

Amy made a smug sound and flipped her hammer up onto her shoulder.

Eggman scowled at her again, but all Amy had to do to get him to back down was raise her eyebrows challengingly.

“Well, I suppose we can do just as well with the data from Domepocalypse as anything else,” Eggman muttered, floating the eggmobile over to join Tails.

Sticks began snoring softly.

Amy’s stance softened as Eggman and Tails became engrossed in their various screens. She turned towards Shadow slowly. Her eyes met his, but dropped as she approached the barrier between them, her hammer held gently in both hands—a fairly neutral posture for the hammer to be in, as though Amy were holding it more for comfort than utility. She clutched the hammer to her chest and pressed a hand against the barrier between them, still not meeting Shadow’s eyes.

“Is it true?” she whispered.

Shadow blinked. “Is what true?” He matched her volume. If she didn’t want to be overheard, that was none of his business. He understood not wanting to share all of his feelings with everyone.

Amy’s eyes flicked up to his. “You and Sonic.”

“Ah.” The relevant blocks of information fell into place. It seemed at least one of Sonic’s crushes hadn’t been completely unrequited. “…yes.” Shadow shifted his weight gently. He didn’t know what to say to Rose that would help. Telling her now that Sonic had feelings for her felt both like it wasn’t his secret to tell, and also like it might come as less of a consolation and more of a slap in the face. He and Sonic hadn’t discussed whether there would be other partners involved in their relationship, and he didn’t want to give Rose false hope. A small twinge inside him at the idea told him he was still afraid of losing Sonic too. Even if he knew that Sonic’s heart was big enough, what if the easiness of his relationships with others made his interest in Shadow lessen?

They’d come so far, but it was still so new. Once Sonic was back in the world, who knew if he would stay with Shadow.

Shadow let his eyes fall to the floating Chaos Emeralds that slowly spun around him.

It didn’t matter what happened after. He loved Sonic now. He knew that much about himself. He couldn’t love the Sonic that was sick and cooped up away from the world and his friends. That wouldn’t be the warrior that had fought at his side against the shadow version of himself. That wouldn’t be the runner who sped towards other people’s problems and shattered them with a sonic boom.

“I don’t know what will come after we’ve solved the virus and gotten him back out into the world, Rose,” Shadow said gently. “But what Rogue said isn’t an exaggeration. We’ve been…” He paused, searching for the right word to describe the heady way they’d come onto each other and then tripped full-force into trust, care, and then love. “…amorous.”

Amy nodded bonelessly, almost like her head was falling forward of its own accord rather than by choice. “And you care about him?”

Shadow nodded. “I do.”

The Chaos Emeralds glowed, an inner light that hadn’t been there before cutting through the facets of the crystals.

Amy nodded again, the gesture stronger this time. Her eyes tracked the emeralds, a determined look in them. “I’ve known Sonic a long time,” she said gently. “He’s always been a jerk. He’s flippant, and brash, and the bravest, kindest person I know. He’s vain, and impatient, and he panics when he doesn’t think things are gonna go his way. He’s insufferable, really.” Her eyes softened again. “But he always finds a way to save the things we love, even if it means the things we’re fighting live to spite us another day. I’ve always loved the way he comes through for people.” She raised her eyes once more. “Promise me you’ll come through for him.”

The emeralds shone brighter. “With your guidance, Rose, I’m sure I will.”

Amy smiled. Then she leaned her hammer against the dome and took a cross-legged seat on the ground with her hands resting gently on her knees in a meditative pose. “Let’s get started then.”

Shadow mirrored Amy’s pose. He closed his eyes, took on the breathing she prescribed, and let her guide him through the love they both shared for one blue hedgehog.

There was an activeness and bravery to the vulnerability of love through Amy’s eyes.

The emeralds continued to grow brighter as they worked.

They shone like stars when Knuckles and Rouge returned, Omega trailing behind them.

“Y’all ready to get this show on the road?” Rouge asked excitedly. She was flushed with pleasure, the same way she’d been when Shadow had told her she could come with him to the Ark. She darted around Knuckles and the giant emerald he carried effortlessly on one shoulder. Her motion was accented by little extra pushes of wind from her wings as if she couldn’t wait to show off everything the Master Emerald could do in the his hands, under her guidance.

Tails and Eggman looked up dumb-founded from their screens. “I have no idea,” Tails admitted.

“These readings are too emotional for me to make sense of,” Eggman said. “But they’re powerful, so I bet it’ll take care of the problem one way or another.” He pulled at the end of his mustache. “Though I’m hoping one way instead of another because it would be better for me if the only other antagonist in this series and the titular protagonist weren’t incinerated.”

Tails glared at Eggman.

Eggman shrugged. “What, auditioning’s no fun and you know it.”

Tails sighed and shook his head incredulously.

Sticks stirred when Rouge and Knuckles approached. She stretched, yawned, and surveyed the scene as the scientists talked. Then she shrugged and got to her feet, brushing herself off from her nap. “I don’t need those little screens to tell ya that Knuckles and Shadow’s rocks look ready to go to me.”

Amy nodded and stood up as well. “Shadow’s ready.”

Shadow rose, soothed by the emeralds unyielding glow.

Knuckles watched the rocks spinning around. Then he threw down the Master Emerald in the sand and pointed at Shadow. “Shadow the hedgehog!” he bellowed.

Shadow blinked, stunned. “Yes?”

“You’d better love Sonic as much as I do.” Knuckles slapped the top of his massive emerald. “These stones work off the strength of our hearts, and I’m counting on yours to be as strong as mine.”

Shadow raised an eyebrow. Perhaps both of Sonic’s crushes had been returned, in their own way. Whatever came next, it was contagious, being surrounded by so much love.

Shadow smirked at Knuckles and widened his stance. “Don’t worry about me. My heart can match yours.” He spread his hands so emeralds passed over his open palms. “Whenever you’re ready, true guardian of the Master Emerald.”

Knuckles grinned and slammed his fist into his hand. “Alright!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, standing taller in his pose. “Time to think of Sonic,” Shadow heard him whisper.

“That’s right,” Rouge breathed. Her eyes were wide and shone in a way that felt like they were only for Knuckles and what he was about to do. “Everything you love, everything you fight for, everything even more important than the sand under your feet…”

Knuckles’ smile widened, and he dug his feet wider into the sand.

The Master Emerald shone so bright it was difficult to look at. Power radiated off it so strongly that Knuckles’ spines waved in it. Rouge tucked in her wings, and Omega stood as a brace behind her.

Shadow couldn’t feel it through the dome—but he felt it inside him.

The bright feeling within him that he knew was the power of the Emeralds expanded tenfold.

Shadow shouted with the force of it and closed his hands around the feeling, trying to hang on to the feeling of all Knuckles’ honest, angry power and simple, forthright love. He grit his teeth, willing himself not to cry over the way the emotions tore through him, leaving his guarded, hesitant heart swelling to its limits.

“Remember what you love, Shadow!” Amy shouted over the light and the noise of the emeralds harmonizing.

There was no space left for doubt anymore. There was no time left for half-way commitments.

It was time to save everything he loved—that everyone here loved.

Shadow shouted again.

He _felt_ the power course through him, from core to fingertip, and then out.

It was like he was on fire, and pushing that fire past his skin to envelop everything within the dome—burning out the impurities to make it well again.

Like a fever, he thought. A fever that left the bearer whole, safe, and untouched even as it raged. A fever like the one Sonic gave him the first time they kissed, that burned safely through every part of him, and left him feeling fresher and a newer after it was satisfied.

He held onto that thought, willing Sonic and everything in the barrier to be whole and well again, filled with the feelings that he and Knuckles had poured into the powerful gemstones.

It took him a moment to realize that his fur had gone gold, just as it has when he and Sonic had fought together in that other universe.

It made him feel brave.

One last push, he thought to himself.

Shimmering light blew off him in motes as he shouted loud enough to shake the trees and blew all the power inside him out around him.

His fur dimmed and turned black again as Shadow fell to his knees. The emeralds softened their glow and fell into the sand around him. Knuckles sagged, and Rouge and Omega caught him. The Master Emerald dimmed and shrank in size. Rouge caught it with her free hand and tucked it away for safe keeping.

The world was still except for a slight ocean breeze through the trees.

Sticks broke the silence. “Did it work?”

Tails and Eggman snapped out of their stupor and brought up their screens.

“No sign of the virus,” Tails reported.

“What about Sonic?!” Amy asked. Her voice shook with worry.

Sonic.

Shadow wanted to know, but he was so tired. He could barely keep himself upright on his knees in the sand. He needed his breath too much to spend it talking.

But he called out with his heart anyway.

Sonic.

A familiar revving noise hit Shadow’s ears just before a blur of blue did, bowling him over in the sand. Rough hands seized him by the sides of the face and crushed his lips against enthusiastic, familiar ones.

Sonic kissed him with all the reckless abandon of someone who didn’t know they weren’t alone, and Shadow blushed furiously knowing that they did.

He heard Rose inhale sharply, Rouge whistle, Knuckles go “aww!”, and Eggman go “Ew…”

But he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

He arched up against Sonic’s body and pulled Sonic down against him.

It felt so good to have Sonic on him like this again, with all the force of his passionate athleticism and speed.

Finally, Sonic came up for air. “You did it, Shaz,” he breathed—his breath coming easy and clear. He nuzzled Shadow’s nose with his own. “You pulled off your miracle.”

Shadow grinned at him, pleased that at least he would be allowed this small moment of schedufruedic revenge after Sonic had snogged him silly in front of everyone. “Not alone, I didn’t.”

Sonic’s face contorted with confusion.

Amy cleared her throat loudly.

Rouge cheered, “Kiss him again!”

Sonic’s eyes widened in terror and Shadow couldn’t help giving him an unsympathetically wicked smile.

Sonic ducked his head and held up his hand to shield his face as he flushed. “Are they all here?!” he squeaked.

Shadow nodded. “From old friends to new, and part-time enemies to boot.”

Sonic turned a brighter shade of red.

“Don’t worry,” Shadow said. He reached up and stroked Sonic’s cheek lovingly. “I already told them I’m in love with you.”

He didn’t give Sonic time to respond before he kissed him again.

Now all that was left was to save Maria.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and want to read more, check out more of my work [here!](http://ashenpages.tumblr.com/myfanfiction)
> 
> You can also find me on [Tumblr](http://ashenpages.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ashenpages).
> 
> Please feel free to come by and chat! Always lovely to hearing from fans!


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